Anurag Dikshit – Faces of Party Poker
Brief Biography
Anurag Dikshit is the co-founder of the largest poker site (Party Poker) and gaming company called PartyGaming. Anurag was born in 1973 and is well recognized as the youngest billionaire in the World with net worth climbing to nearly $3.19 billion dollars after Party Gaming’s poker and online casino stocks soared.
After PartyGaming went public Anurag sold off much of his shares and is now left with 30-32% of the company.
About Anurag
Anurag was born in and also went to college in the same town he was born, New Delhi, India . Upon graduation Anurag worked as a software developer in the USA . He worked for companies like At&t and also CMC. His game of choice is that of Chess and not necessarily Poker. He also is an active collector of antiques.
PartyGaming and Anurag Dikshit
Anurag Dikshit was not the person who came up with PartyGaming but instead was in the right place at the right time. At the ripe old age of 25 Anurag was asked to develop software code for Planet Luck casino (part of PartyGaming). PartyGaming was actually developed by an American named Parasol. After seeing first hand Anurag’s impressive skills with programming he was given a large sum of shares in the company to continue working with PartyGaming.
The Coming of Party Poker
In the year 2000 Anurag hired a friend by the name of Vikrant Bhargava to begin working on Party Poker with him and others. In 2001 Party Poker was launched which allowed for 20,000 players at once. The software was remodeled in upcoming years to allow for 70,000 players, and multi-table activities.
Stepping Down
Anurag Dikshit finally announced leaving PartyGaming’s board of directors in May of 2006 to work on other specialty projects for the company. Dikshit has been named as Forbes 207th richest person in the world in 2006 and top 40 richest people in India. Anurag Dikshit may sound like a funny name but in fact it’s not pronounced like you may think. Instead his last name is pronounced (Dix – it).
Party Poker continues to be a leader in online gaming. As of today they are the largest providers of online poker. Party poker is currently evaluating other markets to because of the closing down of Party Poker in the USA. Partygaming stock was cut in half after online gaming was banned in the USA. Despite the obstacles Partygaming has had to overcome due to laws in the US they have once again become the 2nd largest poker site. Due to the grey area of sports betting and poker in India, they have curved that market despite originating from India.
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References:
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anurag_Dikshit
Forbes – Richest People in World
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/7XUE.html
Forbes – Richest People in India
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/77/7XUE.html
