888 Founder Passes Away
7th January, 2010
A found of one of the giant Gibraltar based online gaming operators, 888 Holdings has died. Aharon Shaked passed away aged 58 after battling an undisclosed illness.
888 began back in 1997 when Aharon and his brother Avi mortgaged their houses for $100,00 to build an online casino with an Antiguan license in spite of having little industry knowledge.
Aharon was a dentist by trade and came across the idea for an online gambling site when he attended a work related conference in Monte Carlo in the nineties, watching fellow delegates flocking to their local casinos. Before creating 888 the brothers learnt their trade in casinos in Israel.
888 floated on the London stock exchange in 2005, with the brothers selling stocks worth $91.3 million and keeping hold of shares worth $267 million.
Despite Aharon’s wealth, he reportedly told the Financial Times that he would put his profits from floating 888 towards helping underprivileged children in Israel.
“I have a lot of money,” said Aharon.
“I don’t go to eat at the better restaurants or go to buy a new car because I've already done all those things.”
By Faye
