Party's float not going as planned?

[Ironman]

Mike,

I've been a broker with ML for 15 years and have some experience with IPO's.

There are a couple of problems with offering your shares to the Party customers.

This deal, no matter what the articles say, is supposed to be a hot deal. It may not work out financially in the end for the individual investor (I have no opinion one way or the other on this deal), but if Party is bringing the gold mine to market, they certainly think they can raise an enormous amount of money. So they don't need to bring it to PP customers. They want big institutional holders to pick up BIG chunks of it and then resell it to the individual investors latter.

Also, the foreign brokerage firms that are bringing this deal to market would find it impossible to offer the shares to the Americans because of laws limiting where they can do business.

And even if they got to a point where they had the ability to offer Americans shares, they would then have to go through the process of establishing this is a completely legal entity trading on American exchanges.

Don't get me wrong. You'll still be able to buy the shares if you want. It will just take an extra step by going through your US broker to get them for you AFTER they come to market.

Dave

[Eder]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd like to hear opinions on what the outcome would be for online poker if the US Gov't did infact rule it "legal" for American citizens.

[/ QUOTE ]

<font color="red"> THE MICROSOFT GAMBLING NETWORK </font> (MGN)

[jon_keck]

[ QUOTE ]
If a US gambiling entity, say MGM Mirage or one of the other big boys (there are still other big boys, right?) were able to put up an online poker site based in the US that made claims such as "100% legal in the US" and "your money is completley protected by US law" I think you would get a lot more people playing online and I think Party would be dead in 6 months

[/ QUOTE ]

I completely agree. I can't see any offshore poker site competing with a US owned and operated site.

[Robk]

to mike and ds914. if you derive a significant part of your income from online poker then investing any decent amount in party or any other site would be a poor decision. the reason is that the success of your investment is highly correlated with your source of income. this is standard investment advice but the future of the online poker industry is more uncertain than most industries, so i think its particularly relevant. if for whatever reason the future of online poker became cloudy youd be in rough shape. just ask the thousands of enron employees with significant portions of their retirement fund invested in enron stock and options.
[img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[Mike Haven]

thanks, Ironman

i wouldn't have thought that you'd need a very long Think Tank session to come up with some interesting ways to reward the players who have taken you to the position where you might make as much money overnight as a small country might make in a year

you may want to reward big players; players who have played regularly for years; players who were members before the flotation annnouncement; {cough} affiliates {cough}; etc; etc

f'rinstance, proof of purchase of say 100 shares within say one week of flotation earns you the choice of a free Shares Bonus of $50 for playing only 5 hands; or $100 for playing only 100 hands; or $1000 for playing only 5000 hands; etc; etc - those who hold on to their shares would receive similar bonuses every year, etc

on the other hand, if Party doesn't do something like this, the next big one to float will so easily be able to lure the players away from Party by offering such preference share deals that they could find themselves in a far better position than Party within a relatively short period

[eastbay]

"Online gambling is illegal in America."

Why do most articles say this when it is flat out not true?

eastbay

[bobbyi]

[ QUOTE ]
Right or wrong, I think online gaming is like the Prohibition era. People still drank alcohol and the US finally said OK.

[/ QUOTE ]
Are trying to use this example to say that as long as millions of people do something, the US will give in and make it legal? If so, I think your sample size is too small. Remember that the #1 cash crop in America is still illegal.

[chesspain]

[ QUOTE ]
on the other hand, if Party doesn't do something like this, the next big one to float will so easily be able to lure the players away from Party by offering such preference share deals that they could find themselves in a far better position than Party within a relatively short period

[/ QUOTE ]

I doubt this would be true, since the fish go where the advertising or casino tie-ins are, rather than where the best deals are for rake and the like. And the big players won't go if the fish don't follow.

Hasn't it already been accepted that sites that charge a membership fee (similar concept) as opposed to a rake will never be profitable?

[balkii]

woah woah woah...wait a sec. The guy who runs party poker...his name is DIKSHIT? i thought that was just a joke...

[Mike Haven]

i agree it would be very difficult for a small site to have much immediate impact on Party, whatever it did, but an already big one, publicly owned, giving extra stuff to its shareholder members (and to the fish, of course!) would be perceived totally differently to a start-up rake-free site, imo