PartyGaming IPO on the LSE

In June 2005 PartyGaming, owner of PartyPoker, floated on the London Stock Exchange at 116 pence a share, valuing the company at about 4.64 billion pounds (8.46 billion dollars). It was soon promoted into the FTSE 100 index despite most of its revenue coming from the United States, where online gambling's legality was contested.

The flotation was heavily oversubscribed and gave a Gibraltar-licensed online gambling operator a market value rivalling long-established blue-chip companies. It signalled that online gambling had become a serious, investable industry and drew scrutiny to the sector's reliance on the legally ambiguous US market. That exposure proved decisive: when the United States passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in 2006, PartyGaming exited the US market and its shares fell sharply, underlining how much of the boom had rested on American players.

It brought online gambling to the public equity markets and exposed the sector's dependence on the US market.