Zynga launches real-money gambling in UK
Cash poker and casino offerings developed in partnership with bwin.party now available to UK customers.
Zynga has announced the launch of its first real-money gambling products, with the UK-facing ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino now live.
The sites, developed in partnership with bwin.party, come with download or browser versions available and a range of sign-up bonuses and free cash for deposits.
In a post on Zynga’s company blog chief revenue officer Barry Cottle described the launch as the first part of a strategy to move into a number of licensed territories.
“Our long term vision is to offer our players the next generation of real money games on multiple platforms in regulated markets worldwide,” Cottle said.
The poker site offers a range of cash games and tournaments, while ZyngaPlusCasino comes with a selection of table games and more than 160 slots, including a FarmVille-branded slots game.
Speaking to SCi in February this year Cottle praised Zynga’s Gibraltar-licensed partner, bwin.party, saying the US firm was “very pleased” with the partnership.
“They [bwin.party] are the leading public real-money gaming company in the world, and they bring to bear an incredible amount of expertise in this area that we can leverage as we go after the marketplace.”
Rumours of Zynga’s interest in real-money gambling first emerged early last year, with then-COO John Schappert describing the sector as “very interesting” during the firm’s first-ever results presentation in February 2012, with his comments quickly followed by CEO Mark Pincus calling gambling a “natural fit” for the company at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference a month later.
This was followed by speculation that the social casino market-leader was one of the parties interested in buying bwin.party’s Ongame poker network “ since sold to Amaya Gaming. SCi then revealed that Zynga had opened a tender process for a real-money gaming partner in July last year, with the company finally confirming its plans to launch egaming products for the UK market during its results presentation for the three months ending 30 June 2012.
The company then hired former 888 executive Maytal Ginzburg Olsha as COO of new markets in August, reporting into Cottle, before announcing its partnership with bwin.party in October.
Zynga is also positioning itself for entry into the US market, having filed for a Preliminary Finding of Suitability from the Nevada Gaming Control Board in December last year, having acquired around 33 patents for gambling technology over the course of 2012.