The week started with bad news for the Sportingbet group as its shares were again opened to trading on the London market and took a big hit in the form of a decline. Share prices fell 951/2p to 1431/2p, a drop of 40 percent, a two year low and one of 70 percent down from the company's all-time high of 445p posted in May 2006.

The shares had been suspended since last Thursday at the request of the company following the shock arrest of non-executive chairman Peter Dicks in the (see previous InfoPowa reports)

Sources close to the company insisted it was important that it restarted trading, thus sending out a message that it was business as usual. They pointed out that by re-listing the shares Sportingbet was clearly differentiating itself from its smaller, crisis-hit rival BetonSports, also caught up in the apparent clamp-down on internet betting.

The promising moves by Sportingbet toward a takeover of World Gaming plc announced last week (see previous InfoPowa reports) seemed to be in limbo as Sportingbet fought to regain the confidence of investors rattled by what is being portrayed in media reports as a concerted crackdown on online gambling in the .

Many analysts seemed to feel that negotiations for World Gaming will come to nothing in the short term, with World Gaming closing at 62.5p Monday, half a penny better but still 40 percent below the implied GBP 56.6 million offer value.

More than GBP 400 million was wiped off the value of Sportingbet as the day closed, an unusual trend for a company that boasted a 55 percent increase in first-quarter pre-tax profits to the end of April.

Sportingbet spokesmen said the legal situation and the events surrounding the arrest of Peter Dicks were being cloself studied and followed, but stressed that the company was continuing to operate as normal. It said there was no question of Dicks being removed, although day-to-day business is being handled by Andy McIver, the finance director, who has taken over as chief executive-designate.

Spokesmen also emphasised that there was no connection between the BetonSports (see previous InfoPowa reports) case and its own, and confirmed that Sportingbet lawyers were still trying to ascertain the exact nature of the alleged problem. The general charge from Louisiana which led to the arrest of Peter Dicks covers internet sites that "conduct as a business ... any game contest, lottery, or connivance whereby a person risks the loss of anything of value in order to realise a profit".

Dicks is due to appear at a hearing in New York on Thursday this week, where he has said that he intends to "vigorously contest" any attempt to transfer him to Louisiana, where the warrant for his, and it is believed other as yet un-named executives, was originally issued.

Spokesmen emphasised again that: "Neither Mr Dicks nor the Sportingbet group has ever received any previous correspondence from any authority within the state of Louisiana regarding this, or any other related matter."

Dicks's high powered legal team is expected to argue that the British businessman should never have been arrested because he was a non-executive director and was travelling to a board meeting of the Nasdaq-listed Standard Microsystems, of which he is also a director.