Empire Online may invest outside the online gambling industry

Sources close to Noam Lanir's Empire Online said today (Monday) that the group was looking outside the online gambling sector for ways to invest its estimated $250 + million cash pile, Reuters reports.

Empire built up substantial cash reserves in February this year by selling its Empire Poker division to PartyGaming to end a legal dispute, and much of it has been earmarked for acquisitions.

Empire also made an official announcement, revealing that its chairman, Leonard Steinberg, would step down from the end of October to be replaced by Richard Rosenberg, a senior independent non-executive director.

The company gave no reason for Steinberg's departure, but there is speculation that it may be related to US and French enforcement actions against senior executives of online gambling companies recently.