In spite of the recent layoffs, Zynga is still picking up talent in strategic areas like social casino gaming. The company bought a roughly 40-person team called Spooky Cool Labs full of real-money gaming talent. Based in Chicago, the Spooky Cool Labs team is made up of social and real money gaming veterans from companies such as Aristocrat, and slot machine makers like IGT (International Game Technology) and WMS Gaming. The company’s founder, Joe Kaminkow, was ranked as one of the 10 most influential people in the history of slots by Strictly Slots Magazine. But from Spooky Cool’s website, the…

A design studio founded by a longtime slot machine industry veteran has been acquired by social gaming giant Zynga, which is seeking an avenue into Nevada’s gaming market. San Francisco-based Zynga, developer of “Farmville,” “Words With Friends,” and other freeplay social games, did not disclose a purchase price for Spooky Cool Labs. The 40-person game studio, which is based in Chicago, focuses on developing social casino games. Spooky Cool Labs was founded by veteran slot machine designer Joe Kaminkow, who spent more than a two decades with International Game Technology, developing some of the casino industry’s best performing slot machine…