Group items tagged

Mark Pincus, chief executive of Zynga, said in a conference call with analysts today that the company will launch its first real-money online gambling poker game in the first half of 2013. The game will likely be launched outside the U.S., since real-money online gambling is still illegal in the vast majority of states. There are regulatory roadblocks in many countries, but Europe is pretty open. Pincus said the launch will be subject to online gambling regulatory reviews. Zynga's non-real-money poker game, Zynga Poker, accounted for 18 percent of revenue. In that game, users purchase poker chips with real money, but they cannot cash out any winnings

Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA)'s attempts to enter real-money gambling may be held back by US laws, which favor existing casinos, according to Bloomberg. So far, 3 US states, including New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware, have passed laws that will allow online gambling games to be played on their territories, but it looks like the conditions will benefit casinos which dominate the gambling scene. This could create problems for the social gaming giant, which is looking to reduce its dependence on its current business model, including bolstering growth and business transactions by offering real-money games. At present, Zynga (ZNGA) has employed a 'free to play' business model, which was started by multiplayer online games like Jagex Games Studio' RuneScape. It allow players to play games free of cost but with the choice to spend real money on virtual items or other in-game advantages. These in-games purchases are called "micro-transactions".

Zynga has announced the release in early 2013 of its poker application that will involve real-money gaming. Over the past year, Zynga has struggled to keep its foothold in the mobile gaming market as new entrants have entered the industry. Zynga's solution: real-money poker, which is set to launch in the first half of 2013 in international markets. Zynga's latest quarterly earnings report - its sales of $332.5 million missed the $343.1 million mark that Bloomberg had forecasted - sent the company's stocks plummeting as low as $3.03 per share on Wednesday. At the end of today's trading Zynga's stock price sat at $3.17 per share, but has dropped even further in after-hours trading. During the earnings conference call, Zynga CEO, Mark Pincus blamed Zynga's second quarter shortcomings on Facebook. Changes to Facebook's algorithm apparently surfaces fewer games, thereby decreasing the frequency with which Facebook users discover Zynga games.

At a June 26 press event, Zynga announced its plan to help millions more make this grievous life mistake available as a video game with its new game Zynga Slots. It's a slots game where you don't actually have any chance of winning any money back. (But did the slot machine gambler ever have any hope of coming out ahead? Probably not.) The important thing is that Zynga Slots lets players experience pathetically dumping their money down a black hole just like at a real casino, with such premium downloadable content as "Cup of Coins" ($9.99), "Bucket of Coins" ($19.99), and "Vault of Coins" ($99.99). And if that just isn't enough coins, there's always the Platinum Purchase Program for $500 and up.

Full Tilt Poker CEO Raymond Bitar says he will do "whatever is required" to return millions of dollars to online poker players who lost access to their cash after the site was closed down by the government. Bitar, 40, was arrested on Monday at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, according to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Bitar was charged last year with gambling, bank fraud and money laundering in connection with the operation of Full Tilt Poker.

Related Articles Will Facebook and Zynga Embarrass Analysts? New Stock Coverage: Facebook Makes Enemies, Fair Weather Acquaintances, and Best Friends Forever Amarin Corporation and Ericsson Among Most Active Stocks in Pre-Market Today on the Nasdaq More by Inspin.com Winning More NFL Bets in 2012 Delaware Moving Closer to Legalized Online Gambling? 9 Basketball Betting Tips That Can Increase Your Winning Percentage 2-3% What's the Buzz? 30 top traders on these stocks and more      ZNGA   5.02  (+1.41%)       WYNN   96.75  (-3.87%)  With the legalization of online gambling activities quickly sweeping through the nation, some of the top sportsbooks and the leading play-for-free poker companies could be in positions to make a move into the real money sweepstakes. Zynga (ZNGA), which runs a very popular brand of free poker over social networks, has seen its poker brand grow by leaps and bounds over the last year. It's no coincidence that over that same time, various scandals surrounding UltimateBet and Full Tilt Poker have reduced the number of options for players to play paid poker. Many of those people have turned to Zynga to get their fix. Read more: http://www.minyanville.com/special-features/sports-business/articles/ZNGA-zynga-onling-gambling-social-media/7/12/2012/id/42334#ixzz20SepThWh

"Big Fish Games Inc. is introducing a version of its gambling application Big Fish Casino with real-money betting in the U.K., where it is legal, the Seattle-based company said. It will arrive in Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s App Store in the coming weeks, and Betable Ltd., a London-based partner of Big Fish, will process bets in the program."

"I started playing at 6 p.m. on a Friday and found myself still going at 9 a.m. the next morning…But wait, I needed to get a job! Hold on I had just found one! The low buy-in tournament I entered with my promo money was coming to a close - and I was in second place! $1850! Not bad for a night's work. And so, that's how I entered the online poker world. Back in 2006 these sites had so much traffic and the U.S. market was so wide open that the sites would essentially just give players free money to get them to play on their site"

"Social gaming giant Zynga has announced it will move into real-money online gambling in early 2013. Electronic Arts has a big stake in casual social casino games such as Lucky Gem Casino Slots, and it has a relationship with the World Series of Poker TV series."

Although online poker is a gold mine of data, until now nobody knows where the players and their money come from. It seems that the knowledge about the online poker market has not been able to keep up with the speed of its evolution in the past years. This paper is the first to shed light on this matter. We use data of 4,591,342 poker identities from the Online Poker Database of the University of Hamburg (OPD-UHH) collected over a six months period from 09/2009 to 03/2010. We find that the USA is still by far the biggest market with 1,428,823 active players and 650.5 million US$ net revenues in 2009. However, with regard to the number of internet users in a country Hungary is the biggest relative market: One out of 57 Hungarians with internet access plays online poker for real money. The two main drivers of the proportion of online poker players per internet users are GDP per capita and culture. Using the data from the OPD-UHH, future research will be able to break down the market also on a regional level within countries and to examine inter and intra country differences in the playing habits of online poker players.

"While Zynga waits to make a move into the online gambling space, other Internet casinos are all in - and have been for more than a decade. This infographic shows how much the industry has grown since 1998, from online bingo and poker sites to national and state lotteries."

While I do not necessarily expect official word from the company on its real-money online gambling plans on Wednesday's call - all CEO Mark Pincus has said is he was exploring it - a story hit a gambling industry magazine earlier this week (via the Gambling911 website) that flew under the radar.

"Statewide services will also be provided to support problem gamblers from non-English speaking backgrounds, to help problem gamblers facing legal difficulties, and to ensure that NSW's gambling counsellors have access to the latest professional training," Mr Souris said in a statement. The money will also provide increased after hours counselling, financial counselling, community education programs and referrals for problem gamblers with complex mental health issues.

Strip casino giant MGM Resorts International isn't planning to open more multibillion-dollar integrated casino-resort complexes anytime soon. Instead, MGM Resorts will in June launch myVegas, a free-to-play social gaming casino where only virtual money is bet to win only virtual prizes. Think of Farmville meets Bellagio.

There are hundreds of virtual slot machine and poker games on Facebook and other sites that are almost identical to adult gambling games.

"A real-money gambling app has been launched on Facebook - the social network's first."