On Wednesday, social gaming giant Zynga will launch its first real money gambling games, starting with a limited release in the United Kingdom. ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino will run on the bwin.party software platform and will be available to players 18-years of age and older.
The launch was announced by Zynga’s Chief Revenue Officer Barry Cottle on Zynga’s blog. While Zynga is best known for its social games primarily found on Facebook, both ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino will be what one might call “standard fare” gaming offerings, separate from Zynga’s social gaming stable. They can be either downloaded or played through a web browser. Cottle wrote that social versions of Zynga’s real money games should launch for UK players on both Facebook and mobile platforms this year.
Cottle also added:
Our long term vision is to offer our players the next generation of real money games on multiple platforms in regulated markets worldwide. We take responsible gaming seriously and are proud to partner with bwin.party, an industry leader and a reputable company that is fully licensed by a premier regulatory authority.
Zynga first announced the partnership with bwin.party in October 2012, intended to launch its real money products in the UK in the first half of this year. Players on ZyngaPlusPoker will, in fact, be sharing tables with other players on bwin.party’s PartyPoker network. PartyPoker.com is far and away the dominant room on the network, but the network also includes names such as bwin.com, WPTPoker.com, and EmpirePoker.com.
The PartyPoker network is currently ranked second in terms of cash game traffic according to PokerScout.com with a seven-day average of 3,200 players. While it will take something other-worldly to catch PokerStars and its 23,800 daily players, grabbing even a tiny portion of Zynga’s play money players will give PartyPoker a nice boost. According to PokerScout, Zynga Poker has a seven-day average of 102,200 play money ring game players. Of course, we’re talking about only adding players in the UK, but even a fraction of a percent of that number would bring a couple hundred players to Party.
While these will be Zynga’s first real money gambling offerings, they are not the first games by Zynga to involve real money. While Zynga’s social games are free to play, players can purchase in-game currency in order to buy game items. Many of these items aid a player’s progress, some give the player the ability to play longer than they would for free, and some are simply cosmetic items, such as costumes for their character.
Zynga’s primary partner, Facebook, has already launched real money gambling, though not in the poker space. In August 2012, Bingo Friendzy was introduced and like ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino, it was only available to those 18 and older in the United Kingdom.
