Forbes: Online Poker Would be Huge for Zynga

Forbes.com published a report Wednesday afternoon suggesting that legalized online gambling, specifically online poker, would be huge for Zynga.  Its free Texas Hold’em product is the biggest in the world. 

Following its Initial Public Offering just a few weeks ago, Zynga’s stock performance has failed to impress. 

A recent ruling by the US Department of Justice has given individual states the go ahead to legalize online poker for real cash play, something Zynga does not currently offer.  States are also looking to pool their players utilizing a model similar to the state lottery system and PowerBall.

From Forbes.com:

The online gambling market could be worth more than $40 billion by 2014, with online poker and casino games accounting for a major portion of the total market.Zynga already operates Texas HoldEm Poker, which is its most valuable game. It currently has close to 30 million monthly active users, and is by far the most popular casual gambling game online. If Zynga enables users to play its casino themed games like Poker with real money, it could lead to a significant increase in the average revenue generated per user, and account for a major portion of Zynga’s total revenues.