Partypoker.com plans June IPO

This story, from CNN/Money, covers the planned IPO of online poker juggernaut Partypoker.  (see PartyGaming plans June IPO, employees foresee big win – Jun. 2, 2005)

To give you an idea of how much money flows through this place, consider the online monitoring site, PokerPulse.com, which functions as a sort of analyst for online poker sites, estimating the number of players on regularly and the amount of money wagered.  For a 24 hour period covering most of Wednesday of this week, they estimated that $88 million dollars was wagered in cash pots.

The company is estimated to be worth between 8 and 10 billions dollars (US) and they will issue stock priced at $1.8 billion.  However you know that’s going to get bid up heavily.  $1.8 billion should be enough for them to buy all their competitors, if need be.

I’m not sure it’s needed though, as they own over 90% of the market.