Poker Tycoons Face Jail Threat

London's biggest stock market flotation for years has been overshadowed by advice from Washington that the four dotcom millionaires behind the venture risk arrest and prosecution in the United States.

Party Gaming, operator of the hugely profitable poker website Party Poker, is expected to be valued at £4.76bn when it floats on the stock market in 11 days' time.

While the company's activities are legal in the UK, the US justice department is warning that operators of online gambling enterprises could be prosecuted and, if convicted, jailed for years in America.

Internet gambling companies occupy a legal grey area in the US, with many in the industry insisting that case law shows them to be legitimate, while the justice department insists they are outlawed.

According to the department, online gambling operators such as Ms Parasol, 38, her husband, James Russell DeLeon, 39, and their partners, Indian computing experts Anurag Dikshit and Vikrant Bhargava could face prosecution under three federal statutes: the Interstate Wire Act, the Illegal Gambling Business Act and the Travel Act.

PartyGaming disputes the justice department's interpretation of the law in the US, and said yesterday that no company offering similar online gambling services had ever been prosecuted there.