What is Anurag Dikshit's net worth?
Anurag Dikshit is an Indian businessman who has a net worth of $400 million. Anurag Dikshit earned his fortune as the co-founder of PartyGaming, which operated flagship site PartyPoker.com. At his peak, Anurag was a billionaire on paper, with a net worth that at one point topped $3.3 billion.
Early Life
Anurag Dikshit was born in 1973 in Dhanbad Jharkhand, India. In 1994 he graduated with a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. He completed his schooling at De Nobili School, FRI and upon gradating worked as a software developer in the United States at CMC. He was a systems analyst for Websci and later a consultant for AT&T.
PartyGaming
When Dikshit was 25 years old he was hired by a woman named Ruth Parasol to write betting software for an online casino. In 2000, Dikshit hired a friend, Vikrant Bharagava, to join him at what had by then been named PartyGaming. The company initially focused on roulette but upon seeing the proliferation of online poker sites, they pivoted. Their flagship site Party Poker was launched in August of 2001. The partners moved to Gibraltar to run the company since online gambling was illegal in the United States.
IPO
In June 2005 PartyGaming went public on the London Stock Exchange. On the first day of trading the company was valued at $9 billion. Anurag sold 23% of his shares at the IPO. The company's valuation soon rose to $12 billion, at which point Anurag was worth more than $3 billion thanks to his remaining 28% ownership stake.
Anurag received roughly $600 million in cash from the company's IPO. He sold an additional roughly $100 million the year after the IPO. In 2006 he received a dividend of $64 million.
In May 2006, Dikshit stepped down from PartyGaming's Board of Directors and took a position as head of the company's research and special projects. In 2006, he left PartyGaming completely. Anurag sold off his remaining shares in January 2010.
Poker Hall of Famer Mike Sexton became the Chairman of PartyPoker in 2017. Sexton died in September 2020.
Legal Troubles
In December 2008 Anurag entered a guilty plea to one count of online gambling in violation of the Federal Wire Act. He agreed to forfeit $300 million in personal funds.
