Home / Poker News August 2012 / Facebook Gambling – Real Money Bingo in the UK
Facebook Gambling – Real Money Bingo in the UK
Posted by: Randy Williams - Tue, 2012-08-07 10:38
The move that the gambling community has long anticipated has finally happened today: by launching a real money online bingo application, Facebook has effectively gone into real money gambling in the UK.
The bingo app is called Bingo Friendzy and it represents the first time ever that the social networking giant has made a foray into real money gambling. For the first time ever, Facebook users in the UK will be able to play a Facebook game for real money instead of Facebook credits. The move and the choice both seem like logical ones indeed, after all, its stock value sinking like a rock, Facebook has long been under investor pressure to explore new ways of generating revenue. One doesn’t even have to ponder whether or not this move is one prompted by that pressure.
On the other hand, the game of online bingo has always maintained a strong social aspect. One may even say the most successful online bingo halls were always built around the social element. Facebook is obviously quite handy when it comes to social, so by launching real money online bingo games, the company is obviously seeking to ease into the competitive world of real money online gambling by parlaying one of its most important assets into a definitive advantage.
According to Julien Codorniou, Facebook Europe’s head of EMEA Gaming Partnerships, the move is aimed to take advantage of the fact that real money gambling is a popular leisure activity in the UK. The company behind the game is Gamesys, which was one of the companies with which Facebook had begun talks last year. No joint partnership has been entered, which leaves Facebook free to pursue other partnerships with other operators, but – according to a Facebook spokesperson – the social media site is not interested in beginning another partnership with any of the other operators. Whether or not this first step will be followed by more and whether we’ll one day see real money
online poker offered at Facebook remains to be seen.
