Zynga Poker Takes Over Advertising Sports for PokerStars, Full Tilt on ESPN

The fine folks from WickedChopsPoker.com were among the first to discover that Zynga Poker, the free online poker room with over 29 million monthly users (8 million daily), has just begun advertising on ESPN.com. 

What is the significance of this?

Two things.

One, Zynga Poker has essentially replaced ads that were showing for both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, companies that were reportedly paying millions to advertise on ESPN.  Executives from both companies were indicted back on April 15 with Full Tilt Poker ultimately shut down. 

Second, WCP suggests a major shift in Zynga’s advertising shift post April 15, commenting that the company could be looking to fill the void left by both Stars and FTP. 

Post-Black Friday, most industry insiders pegged Zynga as a potential “winner,” But the platform itself wasn’t anywhere near what PokerStars and Full Tilt customers were used to experiencing. And while it’s still not comparable to real money sites, the platform has been upgraded over the past six months.

We don’t expect Zynga to make any earth-shaking moves into poker until after they IPO. But an ad buy on espn.com–even if they don’t come near the $20M+ PokerStars is rumored to have dropped annually with The Globals Sports Leader, shows there is at least some appetite on their part to broaden the profile of their product and explore new customer acquisition channels.

- Ace King, Gambling911.com