Facebook Aims at Real Money Gaming in Europe?

In related news to last day’s report on Zynga withdrawing its plans to enter the regulated real money gaming market of the United States, the largest social media site takes steps in quite the opposite direction.

According to European news sources, social media site Facebook is to expand its real money gaming interests in the regulated markets of the continent, more specifically in Spain and Italy. With the experimental launch of the offering in the United Kingdom proving to be successful, the company is now apparently planning on entering the segregated markets with its own gambling operations.

In August last year, Facebook first allowed real money gaming applications to launch, exclusive to the United Kingdom market. The first games to serve punters were Bingo & Slots Friendzy and 888’s bingo and casino client, soon to be followed by Paddy Power’s sports betting app. In the meantime, the largest social gaming company, Zynga, which had been expected to be able to profit the most from moving to the real money market, announced they would not expand their offering, at least not in the regulated US market.

Zynga has also been experimenting with real money operations in the United Kingdom, under an agreement with bwin.party, not to mention their own take at Facebook, which has also been introduced. Most recently, however, they have announced that they do not seek opportunities in the regulated US market, which may have a lot to do with their published Q2 2013 report, showing ever decreasing revenues.

Apparently, Facebook still considers it profitable to enter other regulated markets, even though the expansion to the Italian and Spanish field would “force Facebook to reduce its share of the profit on bets,” as Facebook’s Director of Games Partnerships, Sean Ryan put it.

According to PokerFuse, a 20% tax is to be paid on the gross gaming profits in both markets, with an additional 2.5% regional fee in Spain. Moreover, UK taxes are to increase, too: effective 2014, a new consumption tax will be introduced, foreshadowing a 15% tax on gross gaming revenues from bets.

Whether it is Zynga or Facebook that follows the wiser path remains to be seen.