London & New York
11th February, 2002

    Aspinalls.com, (www.aspinalls.com), one of the world's most prestigious casino names, today announced a sponsorship deal with SINA.com, (www.sina.com) the leading Chinese media and Internet services company for Chinese communities worldwide, to promote
online gaming to the 32 million worldwide Chinese audience.

    Capitalising on the most important annual event in the Chinese calendar, Chinese New Year, Aspinalls.com will sponsor the games section in the SINA.com network, which reaches 70 per-cent of the North American online Chinese community estimated at 2.6 million.  Over a four-week period Aspinalls.com will run a targeted marketing campaign, supported by online advertising on the SINA.com US site as well as Direct Marketing activity through the SINA global network reaching an additional 20.4 million world-wide.

    Leveraging the huge popularity of online gambling amongst the Asian community, Aspinalls.com's three casinos - The London Casino, Caribbean Casino and Sports Casino - can be directly accessed via the SINA.com website. The Casinos feature all the traditional casino games including Blackjack and Roulette as well as authentic Asian games such as Pai Gow Poker.

    Russell Foreman, CEO of Aspinalls Online plc, commented: "The Asian gaming community has always been an important market for traditional gaming operators. SINA.com provides a direct channel to the majority of the 32 million Chinese currently online globally."

    Reaching 69% of the online Chinese community worldwide, SINA.com receives 25
million monthly visitors and generates 2.2 billion page views each month.

    Recent research suggests that the online gambling industry world-wide is set to grow from $6.6 billion in 2001 to $20.8 billion in 2005, with the number of online gamblers in the US and Europe predicted to grow from the current 2.9 million to a predicted 7.4 million in 2005 (Source:Datamonitor).
 

About Aspinalls.com Online Casinos
    Aspinall's is one of the most prestigious names in the world of casinos, having owned and operated bricks-and-mortar casinos for some 40 years. During that time it has established a reputation built on trust, fair play and the highest levels of personal service.

    Aspinalls.com is the trading name of Aspinalls Online plc - the first online-only casino business to be publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange.
 

For further information, please contact:

Mindy Dooa /Penny Lukats
GTH Media Relations
Tel: UK + 44 (0)20 7467 0607
Tel: US 001 212 334 5545
mindyd@gth.co.uk

For Aspinalls.com
Rachel Ridley
Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 6696
Email: rachel.ridley@aspinalls.com