Real money poker to come to Facebook?

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Facebook and Zynga have altered their partnership agreement, allowing Zynga to offer real money online poker directly through Facebook.

Facebook - Zynga

Zynga has previously made an agreement with bwin.party to launch its first real money online poker service in the UK in the first half of 2013. According to the original plans, Zynga would have used the PartyPoker platform to enter the real money online poker market but apparently, now the company has the opportunity to do that directly via Facebook.

It has been reported that the two social media giants have revised their partnership agreement, loosening their ties, which allows Zynga to offer real money gaming directly through the social network.

“If Facebook allows real money gambling games on the Facebook web site in countries where Zynga has real money gambling games, Zynga will subsequently launch such games on the Facebook web site...,” the statement reads.

As Facebook has already allowed real money gambling in the United Kingdom, namely the Bingo Slots Friendzy game this August, it is theoretically possible for British players to play real money Zynga poker on Facebook.

While this is definitely good news for poker, paving the way for a wider real money market, Zynga itself does not appear to benefit a lot from the revision of the agreement. They are no longer regarded a top priority partner of Facebook and, as a result, their shares immediately dropped further by 13%.

Zynga has been experiencing a serious downswing lately. Their Q3 financial report has not helped them and they constantly show drops in spite of the predicted, minor growth. Shares of the company have consequently also been dropping and now they are only of a fragment of their values as of the beginning of the year on NASDAQ.

Moreover, major game publishing company Electronic Arts have also sued Zynga for stealing game ideas and, apparently, EA is expected to win the lawsuit. Meanwhile, Zynga has already laid off 5% of its employees and are seeking to cut on their running costs.