Zynga confirms real money gambling URLs
Operator to launch UK-facing offering under ZyngaPlusCasino and ZyngaPlusPoker handles.
A Zynga spokesperson has confirmed that the company will launch its UK-facing, real money casino and poker sites under the ZyngaPlusCasino.co.uk and ZyngaPlusPoker.co.uk URLs.
The holding pages first went live in December last year, but the operator has only just confirmed that each site is genuine. The pages also reveal some of the products which will be available to players, with ZyngaPlusPoker featuring a number of poker variants including Texas Hold’em, Omaha Hi-Lo and 7 Card Stud.
Meanwhile the casino site will feature roulette, blackjack and baccarat alongside video slots, including the FarmVille-themed game first announced in October last year.
The operator is launching its UK egaming offering in partnership with bwin.party, in a revenue share agreement which will see the egaming giant supplying a full suite of gambling products, and ZyngaPlusPoker becoming a skin on the bwin.party poker network.
The sites will operate under bwin.party’s Gibraltar egaming licence, meaning that Zynga will be able to forgo applying for regulatory approval, with each site featuring the jurisdiction’s seal of approval. However, Zynga has also begun preparations for entering a regulated US gambling market, having filed for a Preliminary Finding of Suitability from the Nevada Gaming Control Board in December 2012, while a report by EnvisionIP revealed that the company had acquired around 33 patents directly related to gambling technology over the course of the same year.
This came despite chief executive Mark Pincus originally claiming that the company had “no plans” to enter the US market, explaining: “We have our first products in development and intend to release them in markets which are regulated and open, subject to us getting licensed.
“The US is obviously an attractive market, but it’s not an open and regulated market today, so we don’t currently have plans for the US,” he added.
Speculation that the social gaming market leader was looking to launch a real money offering first started to build in February 2012, when then-COO John Schappert admitted that the egaming sector was “very interesting”, while CEO Mark Pincus described online gambling as a “natural fit” for the company during Morgan Stanley’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications Conference a month later.
Rumours then emerged that Zynga was one of the parties interested in acquiring the Ongame poker network from bwin.party in July, followed by reports of the opening of a tender process for a poker platform the same month.
Pincus finally confirmed the launch of a real money offering around the end of July, with former 888 executive Maytal Ginzburg Olsha hired to oversee the project in August, reporting to chief revenue officer Barry Cottle.
At the time the CEO explained: “We are developing a new growth opportunity in real-money gambling to build on our strong casino presence with Zynga Poker “ the world’s largest free play poker game “ and our hit bingo and slots games.”