opened a tender process for a real-money gaming
partner in July last year, with the company ?nally
con?rming its plans to launch egaming products
for the UK market during its results presentation
for the three months ending 30 June 2012.
The biggest egaming activity of the past month
UNIBET ACQUIRES
STAKE IN BONZA GAMING
ZYNGA LAUNCHES
REAL-MONEY
GAMBLING IN UK
Zynga has announced the launch of its ?rst
real-money gambling products, with the UKfacing ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino
going live at the start of April.
The sites, developed in partnership with bwin.
party, come in download or browser versions
and feature a range of sign-up bonuses and free
cash for deposits.
In a post on Zynga’s company blog, chief
revenue officer Barry Cottle described the
launch as the ?rst part of a strategy to move into
a number of licensed territories. “Our long term
vision is to offer our players the next generation
of real money games on multiple platforms in
regulated markets worldwide,” Cottle said.
The poker site offers a range of cash games
and tournaments, while ZyngaPlusCasino comes
with a selection of table games and more than 160
slots, including a FarmVille-branded slots game.
Speaking to eGR's sister publication Social
Casino Intelligence in February this year, Cottle
praised Zynga’s Gibraltar-licensed partner,
bwin.party, saying the US ?rm was “very
pleased” with the partnership. “They [bwin.
party] are the leading public real-money gaming
company in the world, and they bring to bear an
incredible amount of expertise in this area that
we can leverage as we go after the marketpl ace.”
Rumours of Zynga’s interest in real-money
gambling ?rst emerged early last year, with
then-COO John Schappert describing the sector
as “very interesting” during the ?rm’s ?rst-ever
results presentation in February 2012. His
comments were quickly followed by CEO Mark
Pincus calling gambling a “natural ?t” for the
company at the Morgan Stanley Technology,
Media & Telecom Conference a month later.
This was followed by speculation that the
social casino market-leader was one of the
parties interested in buying bwin.party’s
Ongame poker network – since sold to Amaya
Gaming. SCi then revealed that Zynga had
14
Unibet has announced the acquisition of Channel
Islands-based holding company Social Gambling
Ltd, the part-owner of real-money Facebook
operator Bonza Gaming.
Unibet will pay a nominal price of £100 for
the company, providing a £2m loan facility to
support the operator’s growth, with £0.5m of the
loan expected to be drawn down on completion of
the deal.
Bonza, which was formed through a joint
venture between Sportingbet and Mirrorball Slots
operator Plumbee, became the third operator
to launch a real-money gambling offering on
Facebook, going live at the start of February with
a suite of Net Entertainment slots. The company
operates under a licence from the Alderney
Gambling Control Commission.
Social Gambling (Channel Islands) Ltd (SGCI)
is understood to be part of the business previously
owned by Sportingbet, amounting to a stake of
around 50% in Bonza, with Plumbee holding the
other majority stake. The deal will see Unibet gain
an equity interest in Bonza of around 45%.
Bonza chief executive Rick Brownlow described
the acquisition as allowing his company to
have gained “a very strong and well-respected
industry partner”.
32RED TO END
SWANSEA SHIRT DEAL
Gibraltar-licensed operator 32Red has agreed to
forego the ?nal year of its shirt sponsorship deal
with Capital One Cup-winning Premier League
football side Swansea City.
The agreement was ?rst announced in 2009,
before being extended for three years in 2011.
However, the operator has agreed to end the deal a
year early in exchange for a sum of £950,000, a sum
which CEO Ed Ware told eGR “was impossible for
us to refuse”.
“The club are clearly interested in attracting not
a new shirt sponsor necessarily, but a sponsor who
can help them develop the stadium and do other
weird and wonderful things, which isn’t necessarily
where we are. They approached us and asked is it
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