SOURCE: Bloomberg

Bwin Interactive Entertainment AG, an Austrian online gaming company, said co-Chief Executive Officers Manfred Bodner and Norbert Teufelberger were detained by French authorities and accused of violating local betting laws.

The company's shares were suspended in Vienna, and shares of competitors including PartyGaming Plc slid across Europe. Separately, Bavaria banned Bwin from taking wagers on sports, the third German state to do so.

``The two biggest European markets, Germany and France, have moved from a passive attitude on online gaming to a hostile, active attitude,'' said Michael Schatzschneider, a Frankfurt- based analyst at Commerzbank AG.

Bwin is the third Web gambling company to have an executive detained while traveling outside their home country in the past three months. Peter Dicks, the former chairman of London-based Sportingbet Plc, was arrested in New York last week on charges of illegal computer gambling. David Carruthers, former head of Betonsports Plc, was arrested in Texas in July and his company was barred from doing business in the U.S.

Bodner and Teufelberger will be questioned tomorrow, and a hearing has been scheduled in Nice, France, said Karin Klein, a spokeswoman for Bwin. The two were detained while unveiling an agreement with AS Monaco, a team in France's soccer league. Klein said the company expects the chief executives to be released tomorrow at the latest.

PartyGaming, the world's largest publicly traded online gaming company, fell 8.25 pence, or 7.5 percent, to 102 pence at 3 p.m. in London. 888 Holdings Plc, the world's largest online casino, dropped 10.25 pence, or 6.8 percent, to 143.75 pence.

Bavaria, whose biggest city is Munich, joins Saxony and Hesse states in barring Bwin from doing business in Germany.

``Sports bets are illegal in Bavaria if they're not organized by the Bavarian State Lottery Administration,'' said the government of the Bavarian region of Central Franconia in a faxed statement today.