According to Forbes Magazine, Parasol is worth an estimated $1.8 billion these days, putting the Northern, California-born mother of two at the 164th slot on the Forbes 2005 list of the wealthiest Americans, tying with entrepreneur Stephen Wynn and Slim-Fast founder Daniel Abraham.
The former attorney got her start in adult when she joined her father’s phone sex business in the1990s. She then went on to advise Ian Eisenberg, another phone sex industrialist, who made millions in a fake rebate check scheme that eventually led to a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission and a $17 million judgment.
Parasol’s other past endeavors include partial ownership of 1-900 phone service Starlink Communications, several porn sites and, most notably, the founding of Starluck Casino in 1997, which quickly grew into a vast network of sites known today as PartyGaming.com.
Parasol runs PartyGaming with her husband, Russell DeLeon, who together have a 32 percent stake in the company. Because Internet gambling sites are illegal to operate in the U.S., the company is run out of Gibraltar, with employees based in India, England and the Caribbean as well.
In June the couple took the company public on the London stock exchange, where it was valued at roughly $8.5 billion. Sales are reportedly up 1,900 percent in the last two years, and the couple’s poker site, PartyPoker.com, reportedly accounts for half of the world’s online poker market.
Parasol’s father, Richard, still lives in Northern, California, and is frequently seen cruising in his speedboat on the San Francisco Bay with a bevy of topless women around him.
Ruth, on the other hand, may never see her home state again, as U.S. officials have warned that if she returns to the U.S. she could face arrest because of her gambling exploits.
Both Parasol and her husband remain intensely private, rarely giving interviews or releasing photos. But perhaps the best photo of Parasol can be found in her yearbook from the Marin Academy, where Parasol, for her senior portrait, posed in a fur coat above the caption “Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend.”