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A startup company is promising to bring the thrill of winning real money to the social gaming realm. Betable, a London-headquartered company that is working in California with US game developers, will offer money bets on just about any online game.
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"This is the first and only platform to allow any game developer to allow real-money gambling," said Christopher Griffin, chief executive of Betable.
"Social game developers have all the ingredients that the gambling guys are missing," Griffin added.
"They have good user experiences. They have a huge install base of a billion players, but they don't have access to monetization."
No specific contracts have been announces as of yet but it is easy for a layman to see Zynga fitting into the equation.
And we’re not just talking Zynga’s popular casino Texas Hold’em online poker game. The Betable platform could ultimately be used for social games that are less associated with gambling such as Farmville.
From Mike Isaac of All Things Digitial:
Most interesting to me, however, isn’t the possibility of turning Zynga’s play-money slots into real-money ones. It’s the possibility of monetizing existing games. Adding subtle forms of wagering to massively popular games like any of Zynga’s “Ville” games — or perhaps putting real-money stakes on games like Draw Something — could be far more lucrative than trying to attack the tiny 2 percent conversion rate that freemium models average.
The area is ripe for investment — and many have invested. Along with its private beta announcement, Betable’s recently raised seed round includes investment from True Ventures, Greylock Discovery Fund and CrunchFund, as well as from individuals like Howard Lindzon, Joshua Schachter and Dave Morin.
US players take note – the Betable platform will not be available for “real money” play until authorized by federal or state legislation, something that probably won’t happen until at least 2013.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
