PartyGaming Board Hits Salary Jackpot

Making a career out of poker can pay, as the PartyGaming board proved last year, with its 10 directors sharing a $36m (£20m) salaries jackpot.

Most royally flush was Richard Segal, 42, who yesterday stepped down as chief executive after earning $20.2m last year, of which only $705,920 was his basic pay. Finance director Martin Weigold, 40, was also dealt a winning hand, with total pay of $8.59m.

Chairman Michael Jackson, 56, came up trumps with $3.28m, while Brian Larcombe, the non-executive director who heads the remuneration committee, pocketed $2.02m.

The pay bonanza - revealed in the gaming group's first annual report since its £4.64bn float last June - is one of the largest for a FTSE-100 board.

Much of it is explained by nil-cost option packages and signing-on fees granted to directors at the 116p-a-share float. These were paid for by the group's four existing owners, not the new shareholders who bought stock at the float.

Mr Segal, who quit in February after deciding he did not want to relocate to the group's Gibraltar headquarters, can continue to exercise some of his remaining options after his departure.

At the current share price, 150p up 1 yesterday, Mr Segal is in line to make more than £30m for less than two years' work.

His replacement, Mitch Garber, 41, who started yesterday, has been enticed with a $1m salary, a $6m signing-on package and free options currently worth more than £10m.

Mr Garber, former boss of online payment group FireOne, also has nil-cost options over 20m more shares, exercisable in tranches up to 2016, depending on PartyGaming's performance.

Remuneration at PartyGaming dwarfed that of smaller rival 888 Holdings, where total board pay was $3.18m.