Poker Stars set to float on LSE

April 17 2006, Paul Sandells

The highly respected Poker Stars poker room, home of recent WSOP champions Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer and Chris Moneymaker, is set to float on the London Stock Exchange with a value of $2bn.

Online poker giants Poker Stars, a poker room which many consider to be amongst the finest in terms of software and player ability, is in talks with a number of investment banks to enable a floatation to go ahead. A report in The Sunday Times stated.

In March of this year, Poker Stars registered its five millionth player. The company announced it was making profits of between $150m and $200m per year.

Recent rumours suggested Poker Stars would be sold to either a bricks and mortar gaming company or an online poker rival. These rumours appear to be unfounded with a floatation now more likely.

Poker Stars is 75% owned by Isai Scheinberg and his family, residents of Canada. Scheinberg was previously a computer programmer for IBM who specialised in Unicode. He founded Poker Stars in 1999. His children are major influences in the running of the company.

If a float goes ahead, PokerStars would be following in the successful footsteps of Empire Online and their nearest online poker rivals, Party Poker (Party Gaming PLC).

Ed note: You can download Poker Stars directly here. For access to the biggest online poker tournaments.

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