From Red Orbit – Zynga’s announcement it would be abandoning plans to enter the online gambling business in the US had investors cashing in their chips, as shares of the Farmville developer fell 14 percent in Nasdaq trading on Friday. The San Francisco-based social network game developer saw shares close at $3.01 after early trading saw the company’s stock plummet as much as 20 percent (to $2.81 per share), according to CNBC.com and Bloomberg reports. “While the company continues to evaluate its real-money gaming products in the UK test, Zynga is making a focused choice not to pursue a license…

From Venture Beat – Real-money gambling and FarmVille just don’t mix. Zynga chief operations officer David Ko said in an analyst conference call today that the company decided not to invest in U.S. real-money online gambling because it needs to stay focused on social gaming and its core casual audience. The San Francisco company slightly beat Wall Street expectations, but it continues to bleed users. This, and the decision to withdraw its plans to bid for real-money online gambling licenses in the U.S., led to a tumble in the company’s stock price after-hours trading. The stock is now down about…

There has been much  commentary in the press and on blogs about Zynga’s  anticipated and perhaps rather late entry into the Internet gambling(iGaming) business.  This topic has been discussed for years and it is finally here. Although Zynga is the 600 pound social/freemium game company in the room they are not the first cross over company to have a social/freemium business and an Internet gambling business under one roof. Gamesys’ Jackpotjoy was one of the first “true” crossover entries into the combined social and iGaming  realm. However, Gamesys has come from the opposite direction having been in the  UK Internet gambling…

Facebook was Zynga’s path to glory — the Facebook game FarmVille, a virtual agribusiness, put the San Francisco social-gaming company on the map. But since its $7 billion IPO in 2011, Zynga has been having a rough time of it, culminating in the axing of 520 employees, or 18 percent of its workforce, last month. On July 1, the job cuts reached founding CEO Mark Pincus, who will be replaced by former Microsoft Xbox chief Don Mattrick. (Pincus will stay on as chief products officer.) The change was enough to boost Zynga’s stock a bit, but on Thursday the company…

From iGaming Business Social gaming services provider Zynga is set to unveil its new real-money gambling games today at an event in Barcelona, Spain. According to Venturebeat.com, the launch is the latest move from Zynga as part of its strategic growth strategy to expand into social networking website Facebook and the mobile gaming games market. Sean Ryan, head of game partnerships at Facebook, will launch the new Facebook titles for Zynga at today’s event. The games include ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino; gambling versions of Zynga’s social games produced in partnership with British real-money online gambling company Bwin.party. Both games will be…