PartyGammon

PartyGammon was the moment the world's biggest online gambling company bet on backgammon. Launched in 2006 by PartyGaming Plc, the site existed for only a few years, but it staged the richest backgammon tournament ever held — the PartyGammon.com Million — and defined the brief 2006–2008 era in which backgammon was promoted as "the next poker". This page records that history neutrally; the present-day GamesGrid is unaffiliated with PartyGammon and PartyGaming and operates a different model, free of real-money play.

1. PartyGaming Enters Backgammon

PartyGaming Plc — the Gibraltar-based operator founded in 1997 by Ruth Parasol, Anurag Dikshit, Vikrant Bhargava and Russ DeLeon — was by 2006 the giant of online poker through PartyPoker, with PartyCasino and PartyBingo alongside. In late June 2006 it announced a backgammon site, and PartyGammon launched in mid-2006 as the newest member of the family, sharing the PartyGaming account system: one wallet across poker, casino, bingo and now backgammon.

The strategic logic was explicit throughout the industry's marketing of the period: backgammon was an ancient skill game with a betting cube already built in, and the poker playbook — ring games, tournaments, televised finals, satellite qualifiers — could simply be rerun. No entrant had more resources to test the thesis than PartyGaming.

2. The Platform

PartyGammon offered a downloadable Windows client with real-money ring games, sit-and-gos and multi-table tournaments, plus variants including Hypergammon and Nackgammon, and an online "backgammon school" for instruction.

Serious players were not uniformly impressed. A detailed contemporary player review posted in December 2006 — a community assessment rather than an official audit — criticised the client, noted the absence of public ratings, estimated the effective rake at low stakes at around 12%, and complained that match logs could not be exported for analysis in Snowie or GNU Backgammon (on analysis engines, see bots and AI). The contrast with the dedicated servers' culture of ratings and recorded matches, familiar from FIBS and the original GamesGrid, was pointed.

One market was closed almost immediately: when the US Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act arrived in October 2006, PartyGaming — as a London-listed company — suspended all US real-money business, and PartyGammon's American customers were cut off within months of launch.

3. The PartyGammon.com Million

PartyGammon's claim on history rests on five days in the Bahamas. The PartyGammon.com Million, held 21–25 January 2007 at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island, was the world's first backgammon tournament with a prize pool above one million dollars.

The structure copied the poker satellite model directly: $2.50 online qualifiers on PartyGammon fed players towards the$10,000 main event. The field mixed qualifiers with the game's elite — Nack Ballard, Matvey "Falafel" Natanzon and Sander Lyloff among them, alongside eight former world champions. The event was filmed for television.

The final delivered the storyline the format was built for: Germany's Andreas Maertens took the title and more than $600,000 — the largest single prize in backgammon history — with Denmark's Lasse Hjorth Madsen as runner-up for approximately$144,000. Nearly two decades on, the PartyGammon Million remains the largest-prize backgammon tournament ever staged. No subsequent event has approached its scale.

4. Decline

The sequel never came. The "backgammon as the next poker" wave crested with the Million and receded: no second Million was staged on the same scale, and the wider real-money backgammon economy contracted after 2008 (see Play65 and GammonEmpire for parallel arcs). The exact date on which the PartyGammon brand was wound down is not documented. What is documented is the corporate endpoint: PartyGaming merged with Austria's bwin in March 2011 to form bwin.party, and PartyGammon did not survive as a standalone brand.

5. Legacy

PartyGammon is the definitive artefact of backgammon's flirtation with the poker boom. It proved that a seven-figure backgammon tournament could be staged, televised and won in dramatic fashion — and also that one spectacular event does not make an industry. The community's centre of gravity returned to where it had been: clubs, federations, and free or subscription servers such as GridGammon and DailyGammon, with the game's history and free-play tradition chronicled on our history page. Andreas Maertens's $600,000, meanwhile, still stands where PartyGammon left it: at the top of the all-time prize list.

See Also

• Play65 and GammonEmpire — the boom's other major rooms
• Hypergammon and Nackgammon — variants offered on the site
• GridGammon — where much of the serious community played instead
• History of backgammon and GamesGrid

Footnotes

1. Wikipedia, "PartyGaming" — corporate history, founders, UIGEA withdrawal and the March 2011 bwin merger.
2. CardPlayer articles, 2006–2007 — launch coverage and PartyGammon Million reporting.
3. ReadyBetGo, "PartyGammon Million" — tournament structure, field and results.
4. rec.games.backgammon thread, December 2006 — contemporary player review of the PartyGammon client and rake.

Frequently asked questions about PartyGammon

What was the PartyGammon Million?

The world's first million-dollar-plus backgammon tournament, held 21–25 January 2007 at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas: a $10,000 buy-in event with$2.50 online qualifiers, a prize pool over $1.2 million, and a field including Nack Ballard, Falafel and eight former world champions.

Who won the PartyGammon Million?

Germany's Andreas Maertens, who collected over $600,000 — still the largest single prize in backgammon history. Lasse Hjorth Madsen was runner-up with approximately$144,000.

When did PartyGammon shut down?

The exact brand shutdown date is not documented. PartyGaming merged with bwin in March 2011 to form bwin.party, and PartyGammon did not survive as a standalone brand.

Is PartyGammon connected to GamesGrid?

No. GamesGrid is unaffiliated with PartyGammon and PartyGaming, and unlike them has never offered real-money play.