The world’s leading social games developer Zynga launched its first ever real-money gambling games this morning, on skins powered by bwin.party’s PartyPoker and PokerCasino software.
Zynga Plus Casino, introduced with the tagline “Casino For The People”, includes the FarmVille-branded slots specially developed by bwin.party for the UK-facing platform, alongside a full suite of more than 160 PartyCasino slots and table games.
Players signing up to Zynga Plus Poker will join bwin.party’s open dot.com player pool, which includes players from the PartyPoker, bwin, WPT and Gamebookers brands, as well as from bwin.party’s Danish-licensed sites, including its B2B platform for former monopoly Danske Spil.
Both UK-facing offerings are being marketed as completely separate websites and brands at this time, with neither displaying links to their sister site.
Zynga, whose Texas Hold’Em Poker is the world’s most popular online poker game with more than 40 monthly active users on Facebook, announced last July that it was to launch real-money games in the first half of 2013. It confirmed bwin.party as UK software partner last October.
The reveal by CEO Mark Pincus (pictured) coincided with the company unveiling a disappointing set of Q2 results which fell well short of analysts’ projections, triggering a 42% dip in the company’s share price in just one day amid speculation over the sustainability of its revenue model.
Regulatory developments in Nevada and New Jersey however helped drive a 45% increase in Zynga’s share price in 2013, peaking in mid March as investors piled into the stock amid speculation the company would translate its dominance in social gaming into the real-money space.
The company applied for a preliminary finding of suitability in Nevada in December, with a view to securing licensing approval at short notice at a later date, should this be required. Irish operator Paddy Power received the first of these approvals last July, valid for two years, after submitting itself to the investigative process ahead of applying for a licence or buying a business in the Silver State.
The developer is widely expected to join Gamesys, 888 and Bonza Gaming in offering real-money games on Facebook later this year, as it sets to work on converting its huge audience of virtual currency players to real-money gambling.
Article written by Peter Holmes
