New poll: Should Zynga enter the real-money gambling market?
Put yourself in Mark Pincus' shoes and tell us how you'd steer the social giant.
Last week’s revelation that Zynga was the frontrunner to acquire Ongame after Shuffle Master pulled out of a deal to acquire the poker network has prompted speculation about the social giant’s plans to launch a real-money offering.
While it is thought to make around US$47m in revenues from Zynga Poker alone, the operator could quickly become one of, if not the, largest operators in the egaming sector if it was able to convert even a fraction of its estimated 6.8m daily active users to real-money, completely turning around Ongame’s fortunes after Shuffle Master partly blamed its poor performance for the collapse of its proposed acquisition.
However, with little experience in operating a real-money poker offering and the challenges this involves, Zynga could be playing a dangerous game by moving into both a highly competitive and highly regulated sector. This could well prompt Zynga’s management to stick to the social gaming space, preferring to remain a market-leader in that particular segment rather than risk undermining its position by shifting budgets and efforts to real-money.
Still, rather than move into real-money gaming alone, or forgoing the sector entirely, Zynga could take a tentative step into the industry by partnering with a land-based or online operator. There has been speculation of a deal between Wynn Casinos and Zynga after founder and CEO Mark Pincus name-checked the land-based giant in a talk at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in March, though this is yet to be followed up with any concrete announcements.
Partnering with a land-based operator could present a problem “ assuming that Zynga did not buy Ongame “ in that the companies would lack a real-money poker platform. This suggests that a partnership between the social operator and an online operator “ combining Zynga’s database and a real-money offering, could be the recipe for success.
Put yourself in Mark Pincus’ shoes; what would you do? Have your say by voting on this week’s poll by visiting the right-hand side of the page, or visit the eGaming Review Linkedin group.