The US government ban on online gambling took a big bite out of PartyGaming profits. The company reported today annual profits dropped by 57 per cent. Ouch!

The company stated yesterday that they took a one time hit of $243.2 million from exiting the US while pre-tax profits fell to $138.9 million.

The recent law signed by President George Bush to shut down online gaming in the US by making it illegal to handle the payments caused 71 per cent of PartyGaming’s business to be lost.

PartyGaming, the world’s biggest poker company, has since restructured and currently gets about two-thirds of revenue from Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It posted a 13 per cent rise in total sales to $1.1bn following its expansion beyond the US.