From: "OtterChaos"
Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker
Subject: Re: Newsflash Party Poker RNG may really, really, really be honest!
Date: 15 Mar 2005 02:59:23 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com
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> If it were legal in the U.S., wouldn't they probably just move
> their server and HQ to the States?
Dunno. Why should they want to? If they're getting, for example, a more
lenient taxation regime and/or a more tolerant regulatory system, why
would they not stay exactly where they are? I think at the moment, if I
recall the news stories here in the UK correctly, Party are registered
in Portugal. Probably not a bad place for a global company to be
domiciled. Note that the proposed listing, which is only one of the
options being considered, would be on the London Stock Exchange - that
2 billion is good ol' British pounds and is the low end of the estimate
(high end was 4.3bn) and would put online poker into the FTSE-100 index
(the 100 largest capitalisation stocks on the LSE). I'd buy some.
Given that probably 80% of online players are in the US, and probably
80% of what's left are in Canada and the UK, there's an awfully big
global market to be captured. I see Aussies, plenty of Scandinavians, a
few French and Germans and the occasional East European already. What
price China? How important might it be to be the global brand leader
and an internationally listed company? 43% growth over 2 years seems
unambitious to me.
I'd imagine that, since gambling winnings are taxable in the US (poor
you), a US-based Party would be legally obliged to provide information
to the IRS. How good for business would that be?
Most of the UK bookies set up their online operations when the taxation
system in the UK included a tax on betting. So they went offshore:
Gibraltar, Malta, Cyrus. Even though the levy has now been changed, I
believe most of them are still where they started: there's probably no
reason to "fix" what isn't really broken.
Sorry, rambling - slow morning at work...
--Otter