888 Holdings Plc, the international gambling company that owns the online poker brand 888 Poker, is now collaborating with popular social networking site Facebook to offer the players of UK real money online casino games, including online poker. The social networking site is now open to offer online gaming services in the UK, and 888 is the second gambling operator that has partnered with Facebook to provide real money gaming services in the UK.
According to the agreement signed between Facebook and 888 Holdings Plc, 888 will offer real money online casino games in the UK through Facebook from early 2013.
The first online casino game to be launched in the UK market will be Bingo Island, an online casino game developed by 888. Later in 2013, 888 will launch many more online casino games such as slots and poker for the benefit of UK players.
Speaking of the partnership deal, 888 COO Itai Frieberger said,
888 has long recognized the potential for social gaming. Our Facebook freemium (play for fun) offerings have found a significant audience, and we are very excited by the opportunity that real-money gaming on Facebook provides. We are working closely with Facebook on this launch, ensuring we introduce the best of both worlds of real-money and social gaming.
Julien Codorniou, Facebook head for games partnerships, said,
Facebook is a great platform for playing games with your friends and we are really pleased to be working with 888, who have a strong reputation on both the quality and safety of their games.
As previously mentioned, 888 Holdings Plc is the second company that has partnered with Facebook to offer real money online casino games, including online poker, in the UK market. In August 2012, Gamesys got into a partnership deal with Facebook, as a result of which it launched Bingo Friendzy, a real money game that allows players to wager real money instead of their usual Facebook credits.
Facebook is now making the required preparations to launch real money gaming services in 2012. Hopefully, US players might also be able to play these real money games as almost everybody in the US has a Facebook account. Besides, efforts are still on to legalize and regulate the online gaming industry in the US, and if the US federal government makes proper poker laws, Facebook can throw open its real money gaming services in the US market too.
