The Gaming Bourse

W/C Monday 24 May

The Racing Post
The Times
Gambling.co.uk
Blackjack.com
New Media zone
e-consultancy
Online Casino News
Bokmaker.com
Poker Club
Filemazio

Monday 17th May

The Independent
Financial Times
Daily Mail
The Guardian
The Times
The Daily Telegraph

Saturday 23rd May 2004

Racing Post – Saturday 23rd May
Small Companies Notebook - Gaming float marks return of the retail punter.

OPPORTUNITIES for punters to use new technology continue to blossom.
Stanleybet is offering its customers a mobile-phone text service through TXT2BET, while a new company, The Gaming Bourse, is about to launch a global betting exchange.

Stanley's venture is aimed at football in general and Euro2004 in particular, though the summer experience will determine whether it is extended to fixed-odds horseracing and numbers betting.

Stanleybet director Chris Brown said: "Text traffic soars during any major UK or international tournament, and with punters moving towards more convenient phone and online options, we're allowing people to place a bet any time, anywhere."

Like Betfair, Punt2punt, which will go live on Thursday as the first product from The Gambling Bourse, is a City inspiration. The brainchild of former options trader Hamish Raw, it will offer real-time, streamed prices, including fixed odds.

The promoters are claiming bet registration in under one second, which they say will give sports punters the chance to bet on split-second events, such as penalty shoot-outs and deuces/advantages at tennis.

The site claims another innovation in having done away with Rule 4. The speed of update will enable the market to be remade without the need for deductions.

The Gaming Bourse launched on the Alternative Investment Market last week, looking to raise £5m from shareholders who will be given a ten per cent discount on their betting.

Wednesday 26th May 2004

The Times, Personal Investor – Weds 26th May
Small Companies Notebook - Gaming float marks return of the retail punter.

SOMEBODY is not going away for the summer. Five companies trumpeted on Monday morning that they were planning early flotations on the Alternative Investments Market (AIM). Several summer listings are also expected on the main market, starting with Umbro’s football kit and a return for Halfords.

Cynics might claim that the venture capital backers behind several of these companies are heading for the exit as fast as they can. Even cynics would have to admit, however, that you have to be daft to float companies unless you think that good numbers of investors will be interested in taking up shares.

A more realistic calculation on behalf of the promoters is that FTSE 100 stocks might continue trading in a narrow range between 4,350 and 4,600 over the next few months. In those circumstances, thoughtful investors are looking for new ideas. Many are likely to look for higher potential returns by backing individual stocks, particularly young, growing enterprises.

AIM stocks are generally more volatile than the main market. When things are good, they outpace the lumbering giants. In troubled times, no one seems to want them. In some respects, AIM bears the same relation to stocks formally listed on the London Stock Exchange as America’s Nasdaq does to the New York Stock Exchange.

The AIM index outpaced the FTSE 100 fivefold in the boom years, fell by a drastic 80 per cent during the bust and rebounded at twice the rate of the FTSE in the

12 months of recovery after the stock market nadir of March last year. Over the past six weeks, while the FTSE 100 went nowhere, the AIM index dipped 6 per cent.

Like Nasdaq, AIM does contain a lot of technology, media and telecoms stocks, if only because so many new businesses have been created in these sectors. There are lots of others, too, from mines to restaurants, so attitudes to AIM are driven by investors’ willingness to take risks as much as specific prospects for the bubble sectors.

Risks of making a drastic or total loss on individual AIM stocks are markedly higher than for AIM as a whole, let alone the FTSE 100, but if you are serious, this is potentially the most lucrative approach. Over the past six years, after all the ups and downs, there is little to choose between the AIM index (or shares in the AIM Trust) and the FTSE 100. Tax advantages will, for some, counter the extra risk and AIM may prosper over a long upturn, but the incentives are modest. Monday’s batch shows, by contrast, that AIM launches offer a wide choice of potential risks and returns.

A classic AIM stock would be Sylvia Sheridan’s Independent Media Support Group, a new business supplying instant electronic subtitles for television. This ought to be a growing market and the company hopes to raise £8 million for expansion. The Gaming Bourse, a high-tech betting company, has a bigger potential market but fearsome competitors.

At the opposite extreme is ATH Resources, which has two concessions for open-cast coalmining in Scotland, one of which is reaching the end of its useful life. It is raising money to repay debt and leave cash to replace capacity, not least in France. At this more basic brass end of the market are Wynnstay, an agricultural supplies company, and Mickelmersh Brick Holdings, which makes speciality bricks and owns valuable land. To get the best out of companies such as these, you need to read prospectuses carefully, use you own research and common sense and keep as much of an eye on the total market value as the share price to judge if it is realistic. For serious stock-pickers, however, this is where the action is.

Wednesday 19th May 2004

Gambling.co.uk, Wednesday 19th May 2004
The Gaming Bourse to float on Aim

The rise of online betting exchanges has coincided nicely with the renewed appetite for Internet IPOs in London, with The Gaming Bourse the latest listing candidate for a place on London’s Aim market. The Gaming Bourse will operate an online betting exchange at www.punt2punt.com, as well offering fixed odds betting, with bets offered on sports, financials, commodities, media and politics.

The float is the first of the current crop of significant UK IPOs to be open to retail investors (i.e., regular Joes, rather than institutional investors such as Morgan Stanley’s and Goldman Sachs). And gaming Bourse is offering free bets of up to 10% of the investors stake – now that’s a real signup bonus. Punt2punt.com is scheduled to launch in June.

Gaming Bourse’s broker, Seymour Pierce, hopes to generate up to £5m ($ m) from the flotation.

Hamish Raw, who worked in the City as an options trader before founding FfastFill, an electronic trading software firm, is a founder of The Gaming Bourse.

source: OnlineCasinoNews

Wednesday 19th May 2004

Blackjack.com, Wed 19 May, 2004
Gaming News – The Gaming Bourse to float on Aim

The float is the first of the current crop of significant UK IPOs to be open to retail investors i.e., regular Joes, rather than institutional investors such as Morgan Stanley’s and Goldman Sachs. And gaming Bourse is offering free bets of up to 10% of the investors stake – now that’s a real signup bonus. Punt2punt.com is scheduled to launch in June.

Gaming Bourse’s broker, Seymour Pierce, hopes to generate up to £5m $ m from the flotation.

Hamish Raw, who worked in the City as an options trader before founding FfastFill, an electronic trading software firm, is a founder of The Gaming Bourse.

Thursday 27th May 2004

New Media Zone 27 May 2004
– worth noting

BT has selected Vodafone UK to provide fixed-mobile services in a bid to pick up its growing mobile business. The telco deal is expected to be worth around £1bn of annual mobility and convergence revenues within five years. Vodafone will replace mobile competitors T-Mobile and MMO2, both currently working with BT to offer mobile connections to BT customers, but which will be phased out during the year.

A newly-formed global online betting exchange is hoping to float on AIM in a bid to raise £5m. London-based Gaming Bourse will offer more than 8m new ordinary shares to the stock market, adding to the 36m held by existing investors. The issue price has been set at 68p, which would set a market cap for the company of about £30m. Trading is expected to commence on 11 June. The company has been set up by former financial derivatives trader Hamish Raw who will undertake the role of MD and, along with 149 private investors, will provide a sports, financials, commodities, media and political person-to-person betting portal. The new company will trade as punt2punt.com from the summer but will also offer its platform as a white-label product for other brands.

Police officers need further training to handle digital evidence and tackle the growing problem of cybercrime, a new report has said. The joint report, by the Institute for Public Policy Research and information and e-commerce lobby EURIM, was presented to the House of Commons yesterday. It said there's a huge backlog of e-crimes and a serious shortage of skills to deal with them. It is increasingly common for investigations to include the handling of digital evidence, such as the analysis of computer hard drives. The report warns that victims of e-crime could take action into their own hands if police skills are not improved. More liaison between the police and industry experts is crucial, it recommends.

Nick Ogden, the founder of WorldPay has launched a VOIP system for workers at the office, at a Wi-Fi hotspot, or using a GPRS or 3G mobile network. 'On Instant' is available to businesses initially, with a consumer version to be called On4, launching in Q3 2004. Following a free month's trial, the service will be available through a monthly or quarterly subscription fee. For the first user and company registration the cost of the service is £15 per month, with prices going down as user numbers increase. A 100-user licence pack costs £850 per month, with 500 users lowering the cost to £4 per user.

Thursday 27th May 2004

e-consultancy, 27 May 2004
New betting company seeks £5m'

New betting company seeks £5m London-based Gaming Bourse was yesterday will offer more than eight million new ordinary shares to the stock market, adding to the 36 million held by existing investors. The issue price has been set at 68p, which would...
investors. The issue price has been set at 68p, which would set a market cap for the company of about £30m. Trading is expected to commence on June 11. The company has been set up by former financial derivatives trader Hamish Raw who will undertake...
sports, financials, commodities, media and political person-to-person betting portal. The new company will trade as punt2punt.com from the summer but will also offer its platform as a white-label product for other brands. Right to Reply News...

Thursday 27th May 2004

Online Casino News , 27 May 2004
The Gaming Bourse to float on Aim

Gaming Bourse’s broker, Seymour Pierce, hopes to generate up to £5m ($ m) from the flotation.

Hamish Raw, who worked in the City as an options trader before founding FfastFill, an electronic trading software firm, is a founder of The Gaming Bourse.

Thursday 27th May 2004

Bokmaker.com , 27 May 2004
The Gaming Bourse to float on Aim

The float is the first of the current crop of significant UK IPOs to be open to retail investors (i.e., regular Joes, rather than institutional investors such as Morgan Stanley’s and Goldman Sachs). And gaming Bourse is offering free bets of up to 10% of the investors stake – now that’s a real signup bonus. Punt2punt.com is scheduled to launch in June. Gaming Bourse’s broker, Seymour Pierce, hopes to generate up to £5m ($ m) from the flotation. Hamish Raw, who worked in the City as an options trader before founding FfastFill, an electronic trading software firm, is a founder of The Gaming Bourse.

Thursday 27th May 2004

Poker Club , 27 May 2004
The Gaming Bourse to float on Aim

Thursday 27th May 2004

Filemazio , 27 May 2004
Gaming float marks return of the retail punter

Investors with a gambling streak are being invited to buy into a new internet betting exchange to rival the controversial Betfair. The fundraising for Gaming Bourse, which is expected to be launched today, marks the first time since the end of th…

Monday 17th May 2004

The Independent - London, 17 May 2004
Small Companies Notebook - Gaming float marks return of the retail punter.

INVESTORS WITH a gambling streak are being invited to buy into a new internet betting exchange to rival the controversial Betfair.

The fundraising for Gaming Bourse, which is expected to be launched today, marks the first time since the end of the bear market when a substantial flotation has been opened up to retail investors. The company hopes to attract extra interest by offering free wagers worth up to 10 per cent of a shareholder's investment.

Seymour Pierce, the broker running the "offer for subscription", hopes it can raise up to £5m.

Betfair, the internet betting exchange, has revolutionised the world of gambling by allowing punters to wager on horses not winning. It has attracted brickbats amid suggestions that it encourages race-fixing, since punters can reap big winnings if a jockey throws a race. Exchanges have also attracted the attention of the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, who is examining whether large operators are using them to get around betting taxes.

None of which has deterred Hamish Raw, the former options trader who went on to set up FfastFill, a company making software that allows trading on electronic exchanges. He is the man behind Gaming Bourse, which plans to go live next month.

Financial Times, 17 May 2004
Aim maintains expansionist trend.

The flood of initial public offerings on Aim shows little sign of slowing. April saw 17 IPOs on Aim, compared with five on the main market in London.

Wynnstay Group, a Wales-based agricultural supplies company that started as a farmers' co-operative during the first world war, is heading for new pastures when it lists next week.

The company will be bidding farewell to Ofex, where its shares have been traded since 1995, and raising about £1.5m gross through the placing of 789,500 shares at 190p. Its market value at the placing price will be £16.5m. WH Ireland is adviser and broker. The business was founded in 1918 in Powys. Since converting into a limited company in 1992, turnover has steadily risen, hitting £85m last year.

Wynnstay covers the Midlands and Staffordshire as well as Wales and the Welsh border counties through three main divisions: arable, feeds and stores. Bernard Harris, managing director, said: "Over the next five years, we intend to grow significantly and acquisitions will form a key element. The Aim listing enhances our profile and will help us to achieve this."

The mining sector's love affair with Aim shows little sign of abating, with Vane Holdings the latest venture seeking to join. The company is coming to the market via a placing next month to raise about £5m. Vane intends to use most of the proceeds of the placing to develop a high-grade precious metal vein deposit in Mexico. The Diablito site is in the Nayarit region and has reported good levels of gold and silver deposits, according to the company.

If that development is successful, Vane intends to use the cash flow from production to fund exploration of its other sites in Mexico.

Steven Van Nort, chief executive, was formerly a senior executive of Freeport McMoRan, the US resources company. Through him, Vane has access to Freeport's global exploration database of more than 7,000 potential sites. In return, Freeport has an option to take a stake in any site that Vane brings into production.

Seymour Pierce is adviser and broker.

The online gambling sector will have a new competitor as The Gaming Bourse, a new company set up to act as a global betting exchange, begins its bookbuilding period today.

Gaming Bourse is offering 8m shares at 68p each, via broker Seymour Pierce, and is looking to raise £5m to fund a sports, financials, commodities, media and political person-to-person betting forum. It will trade as punt2punt.com and offer real-time streaming prices as well as traditional fixed odds.

Michelmersh Brick, the UK's largest specialist brickmaker, is planning to list on May 26.

The Hampshire-based group is aiming to raise £6m via a share placing by Charles Stanley that will value it at about £24m. It has a net asset value of £26.2m while results for the year to November 30 2003 showed profits of £1.5m on turnover of £18.9m.

Daily Mail, London, 17 May 2004
Numerous Small Firms Join Britain's Alternative
Investment Market

May 17--The farmers are coming to market -- and so are the coal miners, the brick-makers and the bookies.

A clutch of small companies are arriving on the junior Alternative Investment Market.

They include coal miner ATH Resources, which is looking to raise UKpound 12.5 million through a share float next month. It is expected to have a market value of between UKpound 40 million and UKpound 45 million. com-Another beating a path to Aim is the Gaming Bourse, a new company claiming it will act as a global betting exchange. It wants to raise up to UKpound 5 million.

Stock market fever has spread as far as rural Wales, home of agricultural suppliers Wynnstay, founded in 1918 as a farmers" co-operative. It is moving to Aim from Ofex and is raising UKpound 1.5 million through a share placing.

Michelmersh Brick Holdings, Britain's biggest specialist producer of handmade bricks, plans a placing to raise UKpound 6 million.

The Guardian, 17 May 2004
Four firms to float on junior market

AIM, the junior stock market, is gaining ground over the more high profile main list with four new flotations announced today, including the UK's third largest coal producer, the manufacturer of bricks used to build the British Library and a farming group which can trace its lineage back to 1918.

So far this year AIM has attracted more new issues than the main market because of its mix of lighter regulation and the ease with which companies can raise additional money. More than 50 firms joined AIM in the first quarter of the year, more than twice the number that listed on the main market.

Today, ATH Resources will announce that it intends to float on AIM next month. The UK's third largest producer of coal, expected to be valued at around £40m to £45m, is looking to raise about £12.5m to finance the expansion of its open cast mining operations in Scotland and France.

Coming to AIM slightly earlier will be Michelmersh Brick Holdings, the largest producer of handmade specification bricks in the country, which has supplied materials to the British Library and the Paternoster Square development near St Paul's Cathedral in London.

The company, which recorded profits of £1.5m last year on revenues of £18.9m, is looking to raise roughly £6m to buy further production facilities. Dealings are expected to start on May 26.

Wynnstay Group will announce today that it is moving from the matched-bargain Ofex market to AIM on May 24 as the agricultural supplies business looks to raise £1.5m. Wynnstay, expected to be valued at £16.5m, started life in 1918 as a farmers' cooperative in Wales.

Finally, a company which counts Derek Tullett, prominent Labour party donor and head of Collins Stewarts' wholesale banking arm among its non-executive directors, is also planning a listing on AIM.

The Gaming Bourse, set up to act as a global betting exchange, is looking to raise up to £5m to support its launch. As an incentive to boost take-up of the open offer, the company will place an amount equal to 10% of the money invested in the company into a new online betting account up to a maximum of £1,000.

The company, chaired by former Liffe chairman Jack Wigglesworth, will provide betting on sports results, financial instruments and political developments through its punt2punt.com site. It will also offer to develop betting sites for other brands.

The Times, 17 May 2004
More firms aim for junior listing

THE Alternative Investment Market will receive a boost today as five companies announce their intention to float on the City’s junior market.

Michelmersh Brick Holdings, a specialist brickmaker; ATH resources, a mining group; Wynnstay Group, an agricultural supplies company; Independent Media Support, a media services group; and The Gaming Bourse, a betting exchange, will all announce plans to list on AIM today.

The market has sprung into life this year, with dozens of smaller companies racing to list. In the first quarter, 34 companies joined the junior market, compared with five in the same period last year.

Increasing confidence in the economy is being echoed in the capital markets and the charge of smaller companies to the market is expected to continue throughout the year.

Following 24 new admissions in April the number of AIM companies rose above 800 for the first time. At the end of April, there were 809 such companies, with a combined market capitalisation of £21.9 billion.

ATH Resources, the UK’s third-largest coal producer, which operates two open cast coalmines in Ayrshire, will say that it plans to raise £12.5 million when it floats next month. The company will have a market capitalisation of between £40 million to £45 million on admission.

Michelmersh plans to raise £6 million through its placing, which it will use to make acquisitions and increase production in the face of a UK shortage of bricks.

Wynnstay will raise £1.5 million which will be used to make selective acquisitions.

The Gaming Bourse plans to raise £5 million to set up a global betting exchange offering fixed-odds betting and real-time streaming prices. The new entity will trade as punt2punt.com.

The Daily Telegraph, 17 May 2004
Gaming float

The Gaming Bourse, an online betting exchange, plans to float on the Alternative Investment Market and raise £5m through an open offer.

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