Bhargava, 32, has a 15 per cent stake worth an estimated £450 million, in the company, called PartyGaming.
His friend, Dikshit, 33, has a 40 per cent stake, which city analysts value at £1.25 billion.
Newspapers have called the couple “gambling tycoons of the Internet age”. It is certainly true that online poker has taken off in a big way, especially in America.
Bhargava, PartyGaming’s marketing director, was born in Jaipur, educated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Having worked as a credit officer for the Bank of America, he teamed up with Dikshit to set up their online poker company four years ago.
They employ 1,000 persons at a call centre in Hyderabad in a business which has gone through the stratosphere.
Last year, PartyGaming made profits of $350 million, which are expected to rise to between $500 million and $600 million this year. Investment bankers Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Investec have been called in to advise on the suitability of a flotation.
With a notional value of $6 billion, the company will be among the Financial Times Stock Exchange Index (FTSE) top 100 companies on the London Stock Exchange.
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