Zynga Real Money Poker Launched Today

This morning, social gaming giant Zynga launched its first real-money gaming sites, ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino. The San Francisco-based company’s initial foray into online gambling is in the UK market, where its games are running on bwin.party software and available to players 18 years old and above.
As Zynga CEO Barry Cottle announced on its launch day: “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.”
The partnership between Zynga and bwin.party was first announced in October 2012, and with its launch ZyngaPlusPoker customers are now playing on bwin.party’s PartyPoker network, where they share tables with other players on the network, including PartyPoker.com, bwin.com, WPTPoker.com and EmpirePoker.com.
With a seven-day average of 3,200 cash game players, the PartyPoker network is second only to PokerStars, while  Zynga currently enjoys a seven-day average of 102,200 play money poker ring game players. Following a dramatic decline in gaming on Facebook, Zynga is now hoping to use online betting to revive its flagging growth. Already, shares in Zynga have soared 30% in recent times on hopes real money gambling will prove a lucrative venture for the company and stocks are presently trading at $3.08 giving the company a market capitalization of  $2.41 billion.
Before today’s launch, Zynga’s main source of revenue has come from  in-app purchases of virtual goods within its games, such as “Mafia Wars” or“ChefVille.”