"Cassava will take a chance on IPO"

Cassava is now considering joining the ranks of several other online gambling companies, the most notable being PartlyGaming, by acquiring its own IPO. Reports published last Wednesday indicate that Cassava is planning to float either on London’s Alternative Investment Market or the London Stock Exchange. To do so would create a 1.26 billion dollar company.

This planned IPO comes right on the heels of many other big name online gambling companies. Cassava, which is based in Gibraltar, however has a slightly lower value than the other online gambling companies that have gone public previously.

Citing sources close to the company, Reuters reports that Cassava was considering an IPO in the following month and that the Financial Times, also quoting anonymous sources had reported that the IPO was intended for September 1 st.

Cassava runs 888.com, which is one of the most popular online gambling sites in the world. It is owned by two Israeli families. The Shahed brothers, Abi and Aharon, own about seventy percent of Cassava and the Ben-Yitzhaki family owns about 23 percent. The British bank HSBC will be carrying out the IPO.

A lot of Internet gambling companies are looking to go public as the result of Britain’s recent decision to legalize and regulate online gambling. In Great Britain online gambling is not only legal, but the growth of the industry is encouraged by the government. The government is hoping that it will become the world hub of Internet poker and gambling sites. This may be compared with the United States, where online gambling is illegal. The true irony of it is that most of those people who are playing at online gambling sites are residents of the U.S.

There have been a number of businesses that sell casino software that are also going public, in addition to the actual online gambling companies that are going public. Toronto-based Cryptologic, is a casino software company that stands as one example of such a company. It recently reported first quarter earnings of about five million dollars on twenty million dollars in revenue and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Some industry analysts are cautioning, however, that all of the high-profile public moves could hide serious concerns within the industry. The biggest of these concerns is U.S. policy towards offshore online gambling. Presently, Internet gambling is illegal in the United States and this represents a major problem for companies when the majority of their customers are U.S. residents.