More social gaming companies are looking to branch out into real-money casino games, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Many gaming companies are raring to enter the online gambling arena as the Justice Department is considering making much more online gambling legal. The ‘social gambling’ business could be worth over $30 billion world-wide within the next year, making it an incredibly lucrative venture.
Social gambling will be a huge new market
Top casino game provider International Game Technology recently acquired Double Down Interactive, a Facebook casino-style game developer, for $500 million. This is part of a wider casino industry push into social media gaming that could revolutionize the industry.
Double Down has over 5 million active monthly users, many of which are likely to take a real-money betting option when it arrives.
Companies like Zynga, creator of the popular Facebook poker game Zynga Poker, are looking to add real gambling elements to their virtual currency offering. At the moment, players can buy credits with which they gamble. But it isn’t as simple as replacing credits with dollars – the mathematical formulas they use may need to be adjusted by regulators to constitute fair play.
Other gaming companies looking to compete in the social gambling market are Caesars Entertainment, MGM, and EA’s PopCap division.
