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140,000 play Texas Hold’Em poker daily on Facebook.com
Message was posted: 09:14 Sep 23rd, 2007

User: Sandcastles Rank: Casino Gold: 15110CG Contributor rating: 81480 Status: Offline

140,000 play Texas Hold’Em poker daily on Facebook.com Following yesterday’s story about the APCW using You Tube to fight for US gambling comes news that the popular Texas Hold ‘Em application on social networking site Facebook has reached over 140,000 players a day. Having been built at a kitchen table by San Francisco entrepreneur Mark Pincus, this is a friendly and free game available to the 40 million Facebook users worldwide. Virtual poker chips are the reward, and a sign of your Facebook social status. On sign up you get 200 free chips and another 500 free chips for every friend that you invite. A quick search on Facebook reveals other poker applications with daily user numbers varying from thousands to below ten. Where though the social aspect of both the Poker game and the Facebook site merge is the fact there are over 500+ poker events listed, ranging from a small group of friends playing online tournaments - the 2007 version of “Tuesday night is poker night” - to Amy Kluber, inviting her friends to “Watch Amy’s Dad in World Series of Poker Tournament Main Event” on September 19th, as Ron Kluber heads back to the table for a shot at the WSOP title. Other groups include fans of popular online casinos and casino games. Gamblers Anonymous and other groups offering to help people with possible gambling addictions also have a presence. Facebook is big business for software developers. Jessica Guynn of the Los Angeles Times reports that since the site was opened to developers in May, more than 3,000 applications have been built by software developers, with approximately 80% of all Facebook users having at least one program on their personal profiles. It remains to be seen how effective Facebook will prove to be as an extension of any online Casino operator, but certainly 140,000 poker players a day will have made the industry sit up and take notice. While the UIGEA is in place and Facebook itself is in development, there are restrictions on just what’s possible, but taking the story of Joyce Park and Adam Rifkin who created the idea of allowing Facebook members to send drinks to their online friends as an example is certainly worthwhile. In the two months since launch, Booze Mail has over 10 million users, has served over 50 million drinks and been installed on over 2 million Facebook user profiles. If online gambling is a numbers game, then these are the numbers to watch. CasinoWire.com