Would you rather shovel manure in Farmville, or play Texas Hold ‘Em live with your friends around the globe in a game like Zynga Poker? Evidently, you are not alone. Recently, farm-based games at social media sites like Facebook gave up their number one popularity spot for online casino and poker games. Facebook games like DoubleDown Casino have absolutely exploded in popularity, and have opened the door for Facebook friends and frequent flyers of other social networking sites to enjoy legalized real money gambling from home as soon as states in America pass regulated online gaming laws.
With tens of millions of players every month in the United States, the casino and poker games currently popular at online social networking sites allow players to “gamble” with play money. But if the other forty-nine states follow Nevada’s lead and pass some type of regulation allowing for online gambling with real money, casino and poker game developers like Zynga will be sitting pretty, as they have already cultivated a massive player base. New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii and California are pushing hard for legalized online gaming regulation as well, and Nevada’s gaming commission recently stated that online poker licenses would be on sale in the next 30 to 60 days.
For years federal law dictated that online gambling in the United States was illegal, but last year the Justice Department gave the go ahead for online gambling at the state level. They basically have given their blessing for each state to dictate its own online gambling situation, with a few caveats. No online sports betting may take place, and when a state passes online gambling regulation, only the residents in that state’s borders can legally gamble online.
That green light from the Department of Justice came late last year, and as you can imagine, partnerships have already begun to develop between social media game developers and casino and gaming bigwigs. Casino goliath IGT in January purchased DoubleDown for $500 million, a sum of money which shows just how serious real world and brick-and-mortar gambling institutions are taking legalized online gambling in the United States.
Even social media game makers like Kabam, who specialize in online role-playing games, are sneaking gambling type activities into their gaming experience in the hopes that more states will adopt Nevada’s pro-online-gaming posture. Obviously, established casino entities like Aristocrat and Shufflemaster don’t have the first clue about how to develop or produce social games, and online games and apps developers don’t understand regulatory issues or casino management. Marriages between serious casino players and successful social media game developers just make sense, and you can bet that you will see social gaming become social gambling at your favorite social networking site in the very near future.
In essence, much of existing online gambling can be a very social experience, such as playing bingo online where you can get in on really fun chat room side games, as well as live dealer table games where you can interact with the dealer and the other players, and even playing online poker can be very social with the various tools available to interact with other players. Find out more about the social components of existing online gambling options at Bonusgeek.com.