£800m At Stake On 888.com Float

The upcoming London flotation of the gambling operator behind 888.com is set to make about £800m for its four founders and the chief executive.

Gibraltar-based Cassava is expected to have a value of about $1.5bn(£848m).

Israeli brothers Avis and Aaron Shaked share a stake of about 70%, and Shay and Ron Ben-Yitzhak control around 20% via a family trust.

Its chief executive John Anderson, head of UK property group Burford, could make up to £35 million from what is thought to be a stake of up to 4%.

HSBC, Cassava's lead underwriter, is thought to be in line for at least £15 million in fees depending on the amount of new money raised and the level of success fee it has agreed.

The fees bonanza echoes the rewards triggered from June's £4.64bn flotation of Party Gaming, the Gibraltar firm behind the PartyPoker website.

Its four founders cashed in £955m of shares on the flotation but retain stakes worth billions of pounds more.

Cassava's website, like Party-Gaming's, draws punters from the US where the illegality of internet gambling in many states is a deterrent for banks with large US operations getting involved in gambling flotations.

The UK online casinos sector is booming. UK online gambling group Sportingbet today said profits in the final quarter of the year were better than it expected, fuelled by growth in customer numbers and solid sports, casino and gaming margins.

Sportingbet said it made good progress across all parts of its business during the seasonally quiet final quarter of its financial year, and it expects operating profit before goodwill amortisation for the year ended July 31 will be at least £60.5m.

Sportingbet also said it had bought Antigua-based ISC Entertainment, the owner of certain U.S. sports betting and gaming marketing operations, including mysportsbook.com, for an initial outlay of $33 million, and a possible further $6 million.