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PartyGaming, the world's biggest online gaming company, has said that it is confident about its future prospects, despite the discontinuation of its US operations.

The Gibraltar-based company withdrew from the American gaming market, which had been its most lucrative, last year. The move came after US lawmakers passed new legislation banning the transfer and handling of payments from online gambling.

As such the unlawful internet gambling enforcement act, which was passed in October last year, effectively banned online gaming companies from trading in the US.

In a statement today PartyGaming reported significant pre-tax losses, which it said were "almost entirely" due to the absence of revenues from the US during the first-half of 2007.

The PartyPoker website operator said its overall pre-tax loss, including discontinued operations, was $47.1 million (£23.5 million) in the six months to June 30th. That compared to a pre-tax profit of $320.5 million (£160 million) for the same period in 2006.

However PartyGaming stressed that earnings from continuing operations were up 29 per cent before tax. Earnings before tax, depreciation and amortisation climbed from $28.5 million (£14.2 million) for the first half of 2006 to $36.9 million (£18.4 million) in the first six months of 2007.

The company stressed that it had delivered a "solid performance", with operations boosted by an expansion of its player base.

Meanwhile PartyGaming bosses have indicated that the group is planning to announce new alliances with "leading" companies across the world, in order to grow the business further.

More than 70 official football club websites in the UK have already agreed to promote the company's poker and casino brands as part of an exclusive three-year arrangement. In addition, PartyGaming says that it has "been busy developing a series of online gaming brands for a major household name in the UK" and will announce further details before the end of the year.

"Over the coming weeks and months we expect to announce a number of further important business alliances with leading companies around the world that will help us to promote and grow our business," said PartyGaming chief executive Mitch Garber.