There has been speculation recently that Facebook are looking into real money online gambling applications within Facebook. The rumors, first started by eGaming Review and followed up by ZDNet, state that Facebook want to open up their platform for real online gambling as soon as the first quarter in 2012 for the UK market.
According to the report, Facebook is looking to hand out eight licenses for real money gambling activities within the Facebook platform. Obviously these licenses would only go to regulated online gaming companies. According to the EGR report, 888 and Gamesys are among the shortlist of candidates currently being considered by Facebook.
The move would see a swift change in mindset to users of the social network. Up until now there have been many debates regarding the value of potential real money players within Facebook. Debates in the past held at online gaming conferences have always been critical of applications such as Zynga Poker. Even now it is still unknown if Zynga will ever offer real money gaming to its players and how many of those players would actually make a real deposit to play online. If Facebook will become a new venue for real money online gaming would online gambling be renamed Facebook gambling?
Additionally, how would security measures to protect underage participation be enforced apart from trusting the information given by Facebook users when entering personal details? And how would payment be made? Would Facebook insist on the gambling operators using Facebook credits? At first this seems unfair as Facebook take 30% from the sale of Facebook credits, but is it really so unreasonable? Gaming operators pay processing fees to credit card companies and electronic wallet operators, so why not Facebook? Especially if Facebook assisted in the promotion of these applications and acted in the same way an affiliate would drive traffic to the gaming site. After all, in the same way that affiliates receive payment, Facebook are also only receiving payment based on success.
Whichever brands do end up having the right to operate real money gambling within Facebook, (personally I believe it is just a matter of time), there is a big question of acquisition and retention for social gaming. As discussed in previous posts on CommerceOnFacebook.Com, a great deal of thought needs to be given to the psychology of social consumers. This ‘new age’ of gamblers will not find your social gambling application from a web search. They will find you from their friends and the people who influence their decisions. This is the starting point that any online gambling operator needs to be focusing on prior to launching any social gambling application.
