

The founder and software maker of the popular online gaming site, PartyGaming, has pleaded guilty to illegal internet gambling and will pay $300 million in fines.

Anurag Dikshit, the former director of Gibraltar-based PartyGaming, has agreed to cooperate with authorities probing the web-based gambling scene. It's illegal to allow those on American soil to access online wagering sites.

Under a deal with prosecutors, Dikshit faces a maximum two years behind bars under his Tuesday guilty plea to one count of violating the Wire Act.(.pdf)

Dikshit founded party gaming in 1997. In 2006, Forbes magazine declared him the world's 207th richest person.

The 37-year-old Dikshit is a resident of the United Kingdom and Gibraltar. He traveled to New York where he pleaded guilty Monday in federal court. He is one of several operators and marketers of internet gambling concerns facing federal prosecution.

Specifically, Dikshit pleaded guilty to one count of using the wires to transmit bets and wagering information in interstate commerce.

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 also prohibits credit-card companies from collecting payments for bets. Under rules adopted last month by the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve, financial companies have until Dec. 1, 2009 to "establish and implement policies and procedures that are reasonably designed to prevent payments to gambling businesses in connection with unlawful internet gambling."

PartyGaming has stopped taking wagers from its estimated 900,000 U.S. players of poker, blackjack, roulette and other games of chance.

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