The portfolio included the real money gambling applications from Zynga, ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino, forecasting their imminent launch directly on the site. The introduction of real money poker to Facebook have been anticipated by many, expecting a rise in the player pool, mostly by the addition of recreational players, who may be encouraged now to deposit real money in larger numbers.
In January, Zynga announced the launch of its real money poker offering in the first half of 2013 in the United Kingdom. ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino have already been made available to the British audience, if not directly through Facebook but with the bwin.party client, downloadable from the Zynga website.
Zynga signed an agreement with bwin.party last year to use the PartyPoker platform for its real money poker offering. In addition, the company modified its cooperation contract with Facebook in November to be able to directly offer real money gambling via the social media site in countries where Facebook allows it.
The play money online poker market is dominated by Zynga by far: according to PokerScout, the last seven days saw an average of 59,800 players per day at the ring game tables. Play money rankings runner-up PokerStars had a significantly less 19,400 players on average.
Zynga has been undergoing tremendous changes recently, including co-founder and CEO Mark Pincus stepping down. The new Chief Executive is Microsoft’s Don Mattrick, who had been responsible for turning the Xbox console system into a profiting venture. Apparently, Mattrick sees a genuine opportunity for Zynga to enter the real money online gaming market.
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