Online Casino Poker Room Decides to Fight PartyGaming
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December 7 -The highly publicized 'dispute' between top online casino poker
group, PartyGaming, and Empire Poker, a poker online gambling website that has
lost substantial market share since it listed on the London Stock Exchange in
June this year, may end up in a court of law.
Last week, Empire Poker announced that it has initiated a lawsuit in the
jurisdiction of Gibraltar against PartyGaming, owner and operator of popular
online poker room,
PartyPoker.com, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
The dispute is centered around PartyGaming's decision to separate its online
poker system from that of its 'skins' (online poker rooms running PartyGaming
software but self-branded). Empire Poker is one of PartyGaming's largest skin
websites.
After the change in policy by PartyGaming, Empire Poker has lost over half of
its market value and claims that its online players have been forced to play on
a 'smaller poker site' with fewer players.
There is speculation amongst online gambling insiders that PartyGaming's move to
'ringfence' itself from its skins was motivated by the fact that skin websites
can be seen as both 'allies' and 'competitors'.
A PartyGaming spokesperson commented that the online casino poker group was
'very confident' of the outcome of a potential lawsuit.
