Ritz pulls plug on online gambling

The Barclay Brothers' gaming website, The Ritz Club Online, became the latest casualty of the US crackdown on internet gambling yesterday, unexpectedly closing its site to new members with immediate effect.

The website, which is a subsidiary of the Ritz Hotel in London, was launched in September 2002. The Ritz is owned by the billionaire Barclay Brothers, whose assets include the Telegraph newspapers.

- INDEPENDENT