Eliot Spitzer really has stopped investment banks from taking bets. Last week, Merrill Lynch, UBS, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank passed up an estimated fee pot of £20m to avoid the wrath of the New York state attorney-general by declining to pitch for the £3bn flotation of Party Gaming, the world's biggest internet poker company, on the London Stock Exchange.

The banks refused the offer because internet gambling is illegal in the US. A source at one bank fighting shy of Spitzer said: "There's no way of stopping Americans gambling on an internet betting site, so we just felt the stakes were a bit high if US regulators such as Spitzer decided to launch an inquiry."