Zynga, the gaming designer behind some of the best social games on the internet such as Zynga Poker and Farmville on Facebook has stated that it will back out from the plans that it has to enter the US real money gambling market. This announcement was made through the earning reports of Zynga regarding the 2nd quarter of this year here it stated that it is giving up all of the plans to enter the Real Money internet gambling industry in the USA. It stated that it will not pursue any internet casino licenses and that it will focus on other markets.
The Chief Executive Officer of Zynga, Dan Mattrick, has stated that the company intends to focus more on the basics with a great emphasis and focus on the free to play games that made the company famous and popular. He specifically mentioned the games for Google Android and Apple iOS devices such as Farmville, the flagship game of the company.
Despite dropping the plans for real money gambling in the USA, the plans of the company that are targeting the UK real money gambling is going to continue. They are going to go on through the partnerships that it has entered with high profile names in the industry such as Bwin.Party, the online gambling operator behind one of the most popular online casinos, Party Casino. One of the main reasons behind the lack of confidence among the investors was the decrease of 4% of the number of monthly users in one year that dropped down to 187 million users.
The other piece of news comes from one of the UK’s biggest gambling operators, William Hill. The company has officially stated that it refuses to make any comments on the speculation that is poised to announce the deal regarding the acquisition of Tom Waterhouse’s Australian betting operations. The potential acquisition transaction could be announced and confirmed in a few days, this value would be equal 30 million Australian dollars, which is far less than the reports that initially stated that the deal can amount up to 150 million Australian Dollars.
The reports regarding this deal started to emerge in July, which is nearly 4 months following the announcement by Ladbrokes that it has distanced itself from a bid on the same operations. William Hill has succeeded in expanding its Australian operations this year by purchasing SportingBet Australia for 660 million Australian Dollars.
William Hill is also going to pay a total of 3.5 million British pounds to its staff that has enrolled in the Sharesave Scheme. A total of 542 employees at William Hill are going to enjoy the profits that resulted from the increase in the share price of William Hill from 1.48 British Pounds to 4.86 pounds during July of 2010 to July of 2013.
The scheme is currently in its 11th year and it enables the employees to save between 5 to 250 British pounds for each month for a 3 or a 5 year period. When the period ends, the staff will be given the choice to buy William Hill shares at a price with 20% discount. The last 3.5 million pound payout in 2012 was given to 700 members from the staff.
Commenting on this, the HR director of the firm, David Russell, has stated that it was a great way for them to celebrate the success of the company as they celebrated it with their team. He stated that it is because of their commitment, dedication and hard work that the company succeeded in being successful over the past 2 years.