Get your facts right...

I read an article over on another web site that was headlined, “Party Poker Reports Huge Losses.” The article read as follows: PartyGaming PLC, the parent company of Internet poker room Party Poker (www.partypoker.com), has announced that its annual net profits for 2006 are down a whopping 56% from what they were in 2005.

The company blamed the drop-off on U.S. anti-online gambling legislation that passed last year and forced Party Poker to abandon the U.S. market, which was most of its business.

Annual net profits for 2006 were $128 million, down $165 million or 56% from the $293 million in annual net profits the company recorded in 2005, PartyGaming officials said.

The article went on to describe Party as an "also ran." I don't know about you, but in my book as it’s tough to call a firm earning $128,000,000 an "also-ran." While they’re not dominating the market as they were prior to passage of UIGEA, their numbers are still higher than the vast majority of their competition, despite suffering a catastrophe not of their own making, and having to turn on a dime in order to rebuild their business in a new market.

While Party is surely not the company it was prior to UIGEA and probably never will be, they are still a viable, big player in online poker.

There’s an enormous disconnect between the headline and the text of that article, and the headline is disingenuous at best and completely false in terms of stating PartyGaming's financial results for 2006. Party Poker did not lose money. While they certainly earned less than they did the preceding year, a net profit of $128,000,000 is anything but a loss, and whoever is responsible for writing the headline that accompanied that story ought to get his ducks in a row.