New industry analysis

Social networking may prove to be unexpected competition to the world of online poker.

The United States Congress is still considering the legalisation of online poke, the main advantage of which will be the added tax revenue. At the same time analysts are considering what effect changes in the law might have on the industry as a whole. Most analysts are considering the current leaders in the online poker world as the main players, however, there may be new competition in the industry from the world of social networking.

Congressman Barney Frank is sponsoring the HR 2267 which is headed for the House of Representatives and most people are expecting PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and other leaders in the field to get behind the bill. Other websites like PartyPoker and the land based operator Harrah’s Entertainment are also expected to enter the market once the bill is passed into law.

However, the biggest threat to the current leaders in online poker looks to be coming from somewhere entirely different. Zynga, who have created Facebook’s hugely popular Texas Hold’em Pokergame, and Google have both been keeping an eye on the market and it is believed that they are both considering joining it. If these two major online forces decided to join then PokerStars and Full Tilt could really come under threat.

Zynga is already in a very strong position from which they can enter the market. Their Facebook application has the largest membership of any of the applications available on the social networking site, there is approximately 30 million players signed up. Businnessinsider recently said, “A source close to Zynga tells us the company is keeping an eye on the legislation, and that it would be excited to move into real-money poker given the opportunity.”

Google should also be seriously considered, they are one of the leading internet enterprises on the planet and very few companies have the same amount of experience. Google has recently made a deal with Zynga worth an estimated $100 million to develop what will be known as Google Games. It is expected that through their work with Zynga Google will also enter the online poker world.

There are other companies such as PartyPoker, iPokre and Ongame who are looking to return to the US market but it may turn out that the main competition comes from the world of social networking.