The world’s biggest online poker company, PartyGaming, has said it expects that proposals for US legislation to ban credit-card companies from dealing with online casinos would fail. Leading U.S. senators plan to attack online casinos by blocking banks and credit-card companies from allowing US customers to use their accounts for online bets.

The proposed law is being sponsored by Arizona senator Jon Kyl, and legislators will discuss the proposal after the summer recess. "Kyl and a few others have tried every year for the past several years to take action against online gambling companies, and every year they’ve failed," a spokesman for PartyGaming told Reuters.

This move would seriously hinder Party Gaming’s access to most of its online customers as the company prepares a controversial £5.5 billion flotation on the London stock market.