Zynga Poker has confirmed that it is going to offer real money poker to customers, and there's an interesting name on the player list at Bellagio's Festa Al Lago
Zynga partners with bwin.party
It has been rumoured for some time that Zynga Poker was looking to enter the realm of real money poker, and now that rumour has become a reality as a deal has been announced that Zynga will join forces with bwin.party digital entertainment. Up until now Zynga has been a platform for play money only poker on Facebook, but as of early 2013 players in the UK will be offered real money online poker and casino games. Players who choose to play for real money will be added to bwin/party’s existing player pool.
So what does this mean for online poker? Will there be massive schools of fresh fish released into the poker environment? Well probably not, at least not straight away as the press release states that it will only be UK customers who will be given the option to join the real money poker games. And everybody who plays for fun on Facebook already knows that they have the option find real money games online without too much effort (at least in the UK) if that’s what they want. It would become much more interesting though if or when Zynga extends their real money play to other countries, hopefully one day including the US market. Zynga Poker is immensely popular – it is the third most Liked page on Facebook behind Facebook For Every Phone and the Facebook page itself, with the number of Likes currently increasing by in excess of 22,000 per day. When dealing with that sort of numbers it would only take a small percentage of recreational players to make the jump to real money play to have a big impact on the state of online games. So although this development may not be something to get too excited about immediately, it could have a significant effect further down the line.
Festa Al Lago
The multi-entry main event of the Festa Al Lago at Bellagio is now well underway and there was an interesting addition to the player pool as Howard Lederer stumped up the $10,000 to buy in. Unsurprisingly there was quite an atmosphere at the tables, and plenty of heckling ensued. Apparently it wasn't so bad though that Lederer couldn't stand the heat and after busting he bought back in for another $10,000. After busting a second time Lederer made his exit, but this would have been an important testing of the water for him. The grief he received was no worse than that which he would have been preparing himself for anyway, and now the seal has been broken it would be no surprise to see Lederer back on the live circuit again. Despite having his assets targeted by the Department Of Justice he's still clearly not short of money to play with.