Zynga is a game developer for mobile and social networking applications, and they have rapidly become the King of interactive gaming online. They have been in the works recently attempting to strike up partnerships with multiple on and off-line casino and gambling companies due to the recent change in online poker and online gambling legislation in the United States. In December of last year the Department of Justice flip-flopped their age old opinion regarding some forms of Internet gaming, and passed the ability to legalize and regulate Internet poker and other forms of online wagering to the state level.

A recent announcement by Zynga shows that they are serious about being an online pay for play gaming company, as they stated in early 2013 they will launch an online poker application that has real money wagering options. While they are considered the cream of the crop when it comes to online interactive gaming, the market has seen dozens of new entrants over the past year, and Zynga’s answer to losing market share is to add real money poker options for their customers.

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus pointed out that his company is responsible for 15% of Facebook’s total overall revenue, but that he sees his company’s importance to that social networking giant decreasing over time. That is one of the reasons for their push to release pay for play online poker access to their customers in the United States and around the world. Where Internet gambling is allowed in other countries, the users can immediately begin to enjoy the real money option. And as more individual states join Delaware and Nevada in legalizing online poker play in the United States, poker players in those jurisdictions can join in.

Pincus pointed out that while his company’s marriage with Facebook has been successful and profitable for both parties, it is unwise to have such a huge physical relevance attached to any one partnership. An online poker application could still be accessed through Facebook, but can obviously have other virtual portals as well. He further stated that Zynga will make the application available for poker lovers on their mobile devices, desktops, tablets and smartphones.

As far as the numbers are crunched, Zynga pulled in $291.5 million in revenue from online gaming in the second quarter this year, roughly $97 million per month. For comparison, last year Bwin.Party took in more than $260 million from their three online poker websites alone, and that is excluding the United States, amounting to approximately $22 million per month. By simply adding a few online poker sites with real money wagering options, it is easy to see that Zynga could bolster their bottom line quite substantially. And since they already have a loyal player pool of millions, they could easily transition those gamers from free play to pay for play and be making money almost instantly once they launch.

In the mean time, learn more about online poker bonus options and use some free bonus money to get your game on at the hottest legal online poker sites currently on the Web.