Zynga’s Real-Money Online Casino Is Now Live In The UK

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/03/zyngas-real-money-online-casino-is-now-live-in-the-uk-with-minimum-bets-starting-at-0-01/

by esalazar • 13 years ago

17 45 13 years ago

techcrunch.com

tlarkworthy2• 13 years ago

depressing news. People don't have money to waste right now.

Pkeod6• 13 years ago

Do you "waste" money on entertainment? Should what you value be imposed on others?

TomGullen10• 13 years ago

I'd like to know how many users are actually 'being entertained' as supposed to scratching a slight addictive itch.

tlarkworthy2• 13 years ago

given nearly every country has some form of gambling regulation, someone certainly thinks their values, with regards to gambling, should be imposed on the masses, yes.

Given that Zynga has hired skinnerian behaviorists, and that they optimize their games by the effect on their bottom line (not entertainment value), I expect more than a few single mothers to spend their money on empty facebook thrills to the detriment of family life and the UK in general.

durzagott• 13 years ago

How does this differ to any of the other hundreds of online casinos in the UK?

wslh3• 13 years ago

A brand?

dayglogee• 13 years ago

Their expertise in keeping users addicted...?

wslh3• 13 years ago

Time to buy Zynga stocks?

Who is surprised by this move? Zynga was always an unoriginal and uncreative company. This seems the smartest greedy execution in this context.

TomGullen10• 13 years ago

By the time you start seeing comments like this, it's generally too late and it's already built into the price. People have been speculating Zynga would do this for years now.

nkohari3• 13 years ago

The real question is: will they be successful at lobbying the US government to allow them to operate in the States? Buying the stock now is (in my mind) largely a bet that they will be.

wslh3• 13 years ago

I bought the stocks before ;-)

Seriously now: ZNGA is ~10% up now and although the stock price of Zynga implicitly has this information, since it is a risky stock (not Apple launching the iPhone I) there is an opportunity for buying it, even later.

kosei• 13 years ago

Considering one of their most successful games has been Zynga Poker for a while, it's surprising it took this long.

What they do have, however, is a very captive network audience. Assuming they have the right targeting, they should be able to run interstitials driving players from their free games (especially Zynga Poker, Zynga Slots, Zynga Slingo) over to these sites at a low cost. You don't have to agree with their creativity to see that this is a no-brainer for them.

mootothemax5• 13 years ago

How on earth is the FarmVille-branded page of cute-fluffy-animals-with-gambling legal, or even just acceptable?

Screenshot here:

http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/screen-s...

I'm genuinely shocked.

Pkeod6• 13 years ago

What's wrong with it?

mootothemax5• 13 years ago

What's wrong with it?

It's exploitative; the graphics appeal to small children. Encouraging those that aren't capable of understanding gambling is generally frowned upon, in the UK at least.

walshemj2• 13 years ago

Why the UK isn't as puritanical as the USA and gambling has been legal for a long time.

mootothemax5• 13 years ago

Why the UK isn't as puritanical as the USA

Yes, but the Gambling Commission is quite-straight forward about not encouraging children to gamble:

To protect children these should include, for example... not deliberately providing facilities for gambling in such a way as to appeal particularly to children and young people

http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/frequently_asked_questi...

Gambling has been legal for a long time.

Yes, but only kinda-sorta. Until quite recently (2005? 2006?), there was no way to walk into a casino and start gambling straight away - you had to join as a member, and wait 24 hours.

morganwilde• 13 years ago

So what they did was add a Zynga scheme (not much besides a few colors changed) to the partypoker.com client. How is this something that will save the company? For how long have they been talking up their real-money gambling stuff with the market eating it all up...

TomGullen10• 13 years ago

Great just what we need.

This shows no creativity, initiative, grace or innovation. It's not addressing any lacking market demands, they are just shoulder barging their way in and taking their slice. To me this is just a cash grab. An unapologetic cash grab in the middle of a recession.

OGinparadise2• 13 years ago

So what? Microsoft increases Office prices, Google fills the page with even more ads, Zynga ads legal gambling.

TomGullen10• 13 years ago

Google increasing the volume of ads does not exploit peoples addictions (of which a huge chunk of their revenues would derive from)

Zynga releasing a skinned online casino doesn't check any of HN's boxes of values in my opinion.

sksksk2• 13 years ago

I used to work as a developer in the gambling industry in the UK so have a bit of experience in this field.

The UK gambling industry has done a really good job of self regulating, they know that if they are too exploitative and do dirty tricks to get more money from customers, the government would step in and regulate them.

We spent a lot of time building features to give customers some control. For example, users could set hard limits to stop themselves playing too much, or they could ban themselves from the site. If users were playing for too long, we'd also ban them from the site temporarily. We also implemented a lot of features which would stop them banning themselves and then rejoining using their spouses account.

It'll be really interesting to see if Zynga plays by the same rules.

TomGullen10• 13 years ago

I have no idea if the UK gambling industry has been an exemplary beacon of self regulation, but even if that is the case it is no guarantee that it will continue to be the case.

You yourself say the only reason that they don't exploit their customers more and 'do dirty tricks' is because of the threat of regulation.

How can we trust entities that make important decisions like these not based on actual care for the end user, but based on the threat of government regulation? (Which might actually be a good thing!)

What you've told me doesn't fill me with any confidence at all. You've described to me what sounds like a delicate and potentially quite volatile situation.

joosters3• 13 years ago

Note that the 'UK gambling industry' is rarely based in the UK and does not operate under UK rules. Zynga's site is based in Gibraltar and operates under that country's much more flexible/less customer-friendly gaming laws. The only UK thing about the casino is that they are targetting UK users.

Djehngo• 13 years ago

Could you explain your point to me please? I agree with the premise that the current situation is unstable but I am not sure what conclusions you are drawing. (Maybe something about the morality of the gambling industry?)

trotsky• 13 years ago

Why would you ever think entities that provide extensively tested skinner boxes designed to provoke compulsive behavior and extract money are making decisions based on actual care for their customers?

Zynga’s Real-Money Online Casino Is Now Live In The UK

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