Impact of Game Ruling Being Felt
In recent months, governing bodies handed down a ruling making it against the law for U.S. players to engage in online gambling practices on gaming websites. The ruling is referred to as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Once this ruling made the airways, online gaming casinos began banning American players from creating accounts and deleted current player accounts from their systems. Along with this move came a dramatic decrease in the monetary transaction taking place on various gaming websites.
One such website to be greatly affected is popular gamer Party Gaming. This online gaming establishment hosts a network of different online gaming venues that were frequently populated by American players. The move is proving to be a costly one to Party Gaming in recent times. The company recently announced a need to begin a series of staff layoffs.
Within the last two months, Party Gaming has seen a related reduction in available operations funding as well. As a result, the 320 staff members that make up Party Gaming are now approaching work days with a walking on egg shells mentality. While the company has been upfront in announcing the layoffs, no one is sure where or when the layoffs will take place. It has been reported that roughly a 3rd of current staff members on the roster will be cut in the upcoming weeks.
Once the ruling was handed down, Party Gaming took the necessary steps to reinvent its operations despite having to eliminate opportunities to the United States gaming market. These moves proved to be successful in the Asian and Europe gaming market. However the company still faced opposition from those gaming websites that refused to eliminate providing services to U.S. players. In the end, it became more of a competition than Party Gaming was able to handle.
Staff members at Party Gaming were informed of the pending layoffs at a recent company meeting. As part of the redundancy plan the company will take 60 days to evaluate all branches of company operations to determine which branches can afford a reduction in staffing. Even with the cuts being made, the company will continually revisit the situation to see if previously let go employees can be brought back in another area of the company.
Party Gaming is not alone in this fight. Another First Gibraltar Company affiliate, Victor Chandler International, will bring a round of layoffs over the remainder of the year. It is looking to expend 30 current positions on the payroll.
