Anurag Dikshit, the man behind PartyGaming and it’s existing software platform, is paying a hefty price this week in order to avoid prison time for violating the 1961 Wire Act.

How hefty you might ask yourself?

Try $300,000,000 healthy - and no, the added zeros in that figure are not typos.

Dikshit, who is actually worth a little over a billion dollars, will be paying forward three separate payments of $100 million to the U.S. Department of Justice over the next several years.  He will stay remain the largest shareholder of the very company he started, with a 27% majority; however, his company’s stock will most likely dwindle for the next few months with news of the verdict.  The publicly-traded U.K. gaming company is one of the biggest in the industry - and before the 2006 UIGEA, was the largest poker room in the world.

The fine also means Mr. Dikshit will have to plead guilty to the internet betting charges that were brought against him by U.S. authorities, even though it was something he has felt he was never truly responsible for in the first place.  It looks as if he just wants to move on from the entire ordeal and just get back to his normal responsibities at PartyGaming, and he hopes that he will avoid the much harsher penalty of spending at least 2 years behind prison walls.

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