Zynga Not Interested in US Real Money Gaming Market

Together with its second quarter revenue report, showing an ever shrinking income, Zynga has announced they would not seek opportunities in the to-be-regulated real money gambling market of the United States.

Zynga presented its financial report for the second quarter of 2013 on Thursday. While he company’s revenues keep shrinking in general, incomes from poker, the majority of which being generated by the Texas Hold’em play money social poker application, also show a relative drop, in comparison with other sources. The market for free to play gaming is tightening up, with competitors like PokerStars also appearing on Facebook.

Still, the company apparently sees better opportunities in the play money social games than in real money poker. While the real money clients Zynga Plus Poker and Zynga Plus Casino were launched in April, in cooperation with bwin.party and available only in the United Kingdom, these have hardly seen any significant traffic ever since, PokerFuse reports.

This might be the reason the company stood down from its original plan to enter the regulated US market, which was seen back then as “an opportunity that’s further out on the horizon based on legislative developments.”

“While the Company continues to evaluate its real money gaming products in the United Kingdom test, Zynga is making the focused choice not to pursue a license for real money gaming in the United States. Zynga will continue to evaluate all of its priorities against the growing market opportunity in free, social gaming, including social casino offerings,” Zynga announced.

“Zynga believes its biggest opportunity is to focus on free to play social games,” they added, even though they had already presented their own real money client for Facebook only a couple of weeks before.

Apparently, the social media site has a different point of view, being rumoured to be targeting the regulated real money gambling markets in Europe.