NEWSMAKER-Dikshit, Bhargava hit online poker jackpot
LONDON, June 2 (Reuters) - Two technology entrepreneurs from India set to realise fortunes from floating the world's biggest online poker site are friends who met at university and took a risk on a new gambling venture eight years ago.
Anurag Dikshit, 34, owns 40 percent of PartyGaming, worth over $3 billion if the company realises its expected valuation of $8-10 billion (click on [nL0219435] for flotation story).
Vikrant Bhargava, 32, owns 15 percent, which should be worth at least $1 billion when the stockmarket flotation takes place by the end of this month in London.
Dikshit founded PartyGaming in 1997 and was the driving force behind developing its user-friendly platforms, which attract more online poker players than all rival sites combined. Dikshit is now group operations director.
Bhargava, its marketing director, masterminded the strategy for pulling in players.
PartyGaming operates the PartyPoker site and has been at the forefront of a surge in the popularity of online poker. New players -- often women and younger people who may not have visited casinos -- have been attracted by its convenience, the chance to risk lower stakes, and by better broadband access.
TECHNOLOGY AND MARKETING
Ads on hundreds of London taxis and billboards around the world are testimony to the part advertising continues to play in luring players to poker sites.
Dikshit and Bhargava aggressively marketed PartyPoker from its early days -- they launched a global tournament where players compete online before finalists meet on a cruise and the winner takes home as much as from big casino competitions. This year the winner scooped $1.5 million.
The men met at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. Both hold a bachelor of technology -- Dikshit's is in computer science and engineering and Bhargava's is in electrical engineering. Bhargava also has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.
Both have young families and live in Gibraltar, where PartyGaming is based. Sources close to the company said they will stay on and continue to drive the business forward.
Both men are said to be shy and although their company has been thrust into the spotlight and should join Britain's FTSE 100 share index, they are expected to keep low public profiles.
Prior to PartyGaming, Dikshit had worked as a consultant for AT&T. Bhargava, from Rajasthan, was a credit officer at Bank of America and a business analyst at British Gas.
Do they play poker? They appear to be genuine poker enthusiasts, as they need to be to run the business, but seem unlikely to fritter away much of their fortunes on wild weekends in Las Vegas.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com - 2005-06-03 02:30:11
