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Betable has teamed up with three social gaming companies to expand into real money online poker, following rival Zynga’s lead.
Slingo Inc., the maker of bingo and slots titles, will use its UK gambling license and technology to help Betable compete directly with Zynga, the largest of the free-to-play online poker ventures. Zynga last week announced a partnership with Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment Plc.
“This is really a tectonic change,” Betable Chief Executive Officer Chris Griffin said in an interview. “This is not going to lead to an incremental shift in the market.”
An early Betable partner, Seattle-based Big Fish Games Inc., said on Oct. 29 its casino slot-machine game in the U.K. is taking real-money wagers for the first time.
Zynga’s shares fell 4.1 percent to $2.22 early Wednesday afternoon on the first day of trading following Hurricane Sandy’s wrath on lower Manhattan.
Estimates suggest that mobile gambling will grow to $100 billion worldwide by 2017. In the UK alone, the market has reached $2 billion, according to Doug Creutz, an analyst with Cowen & Co.
Sites like Camasino.com, which offer real money gambling to those outside the US have gotten a jump start on the competition by developing a “free play” customer database in hopes of converting Americans to “real money” players once Web gambling becomes legalized. Camasino.com operates the largest brick and mortar poker room in Canada.
“Our goal would be to transition online players into gamblers of our content,” Slingo CEO Rich Roberts said in an interview. “Betable gives us an opportunity to move a little bit quicker than we could on our own.”
Online gamblers spend about $75 to $100 a month, according to Betable’s Griffin.
With online poker legalized in the state of Nevada this year and US federal Web poker legislation potentially taking center stage during the Lame Duck session, social gaming websites will have to compete with the brick and mortar power houses like Caesar’s and MGM. Likewise, well established online gambling sites continue to thrive outside the US with some still accepting customers from most states.
“Social gaming companies are not just going to be competing with each other, but they’re going to be competing with traditional enterprises,” Creutz said. “Gambling games are a commodity, and there’s no guarantee of success for that reason.”
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
