Nabarro Nathanson and Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) will not be the first to discover that online gaming is a risky business. But with both firms having missed out on major mandates in the sector in recent weeks, the pair could be forgiven for feeling that their luck is out at the moment.

While BLP says that it was never lead corporate adviser to Betfair, which has just turned to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer on a major bid ( see below), Nabarros' recent loss of lead counsel status to Empire Online is harder to spin.

Nabarros had understandably made much of its eye-catching role on the £512m AIM flotation of Empire in June last year. The firm followed up on this success by advising the client on its attempt at a £790m merger with Sportingbet in September. However, by the New Year, the firm no longer acted for the company at all. This became evident last month when Travers was brought in to advise on Empire's settlement of a contractual dispute along with the $250m (£141m) sale of some of its web assets to PartyGaming.