888 sparkles as City talks up prospects of Las Vegas approach

The glittering lights of Las Vegas were twinkling benevolently on 888 Holdings today.

Traders said that Harrah's — one of the world's biggest entertainment groups whose name is to be seen everywhere throughout Sin City — is putting together a bid for the Gilbraltar-based online poker group.

Shares in 888 Holdings had yet to gain momentum on the talks, up only 0.5p to 45.8p but the City boys were excited enough to start talking up the prospects of a fact-finding field trip to play roulette at a Harrah's casino.

Betfair — 888 Holdings' internet rival which focuses on betting but still plays Texas Holdem — will finally decide the pricing for its £1 billion to £1.5 billion IPO at its AGM this evening. The City is keen to discover the success, or otherwise, of the suits at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley in drumming up interest.

Goldman's work on the disastrous Ocado float was still in evidence to embarrass them today, with the shares up just 0.1p to 132.3p — still well off the at 180p IPO price.

But overall the benchmark index was gaining momentum, up 53.65 to 5689.41 points because, as one weary trader put it, "people have had enough pain and have just started to buy."

The push was led by the major market muscle, the miners, with Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton storming ahead as reports emerged that their proposed $116 billion (£73.1 billion) iron-ore joint venture was as good as dead because of regulators' dislike.

Rio protested that despite "acknowledged recent communications from regulators that indicate potential obstacles to achieving clearance for the joint venture" it had not yet been scrapped — but market-makers thought otherwise, and since they'd never much liked the sound of the tie up, Rio's shares stormed up 99p to 3891p and BHP gained 54p to 2128.5p.

Most of their rivals also won places on the Footsie's leaderboard, aided by higher metal prices because of the weak dollar, plus a 7000-word positive note on the diggers by Morgan Stanley. The bank's analysts gave a particular nod to Xstrata, up 39p to 1279p, Kazakhmys, up 50p to 1477p and African Barrick Gold, up 22.5p or 3.7% to 638.5p.

Antofagasta took the top spot on the leader board, up 57p at 1326p, and other climbers included Anglo American, winning the number two position up 111.5p to 2753p, and silver specialist Fresnillo, up 29p to 1329p.

Yesterday's leper, satellite group Inmarsat, was back in favour today as brokers at Barclays Capital upgraded it from underweight to equalweight. BarCap's Jonathan Dann was looking on the bright side of Harbinger Capital's sale of a 14.1% stake in the group yesterday, saying the placing "partially removes an ownership overhang". The shares rose 8.5p or 1.35% to 637.4p.

Elsewhere Cairn Energy told a conference that the results of the Edinburgh-based oil and gas exploration outfit's drilling programme in Greenland this summer had been a "royal flush".

The market liked the sound of the comments by Mike Watts, Cairn's exploration director, that the drilling had been "about as good an outcome as we could have expected in our first season", sending the shares up 9.8p or 2.3% to 455.1p.