LONDON - Ritz Club, a gaming club at London's upmarket Ritz Hotel, said it had closed its online gaming site amid legal actions against the sector in Europe and the United States.

"In light of the current confusion and inconsistency in online gaming legislation worldwide, the owners of The Ritz Club London Online have, regretfully, decided to close the site to new customers with immediate effect," Ritz Club said on Tuesday in a statement on the Web site www.ritzclublondon.com.

A spokeswoman for Ritz Club in London said the site had been taken down on Friday and there were no longer any links from the club's main Web site to the online gaming site.

Shares across the sector have taken a series of knocks since July as some U.S. politicians seek to ban Internet gambling there and as U.S. and European prosecutors target executives from BETonSPORTS, Sportingbet and Bwin.com.

UK gaming stocks have lost a combined 2.4 billion pounds in value since the end of June as the industry continues to lose executives. On Monday, World Gaming said its chairman and a director had resigned.