I can’t wait to friend Wayne Newton!
Big Face has introduced an app called Bingo & Slots Friendzy, which is a real gambling app involving real money. Not points or credits or whatever. Money. It’s available in the UK only for now because American online gambling laws are pretty strict whereas it’s a lot more legal and common in the UK. The app is made by a company called Gamesys, which makes other non-gambling games on Facebook.
From TechCrunch:
Before being permitted to play, users have to verify their identity in their accounts, proving that they are over 18 and located in the UK. Also, Facebook has an age-gating technology that will mean that any activity related to the games will not appear in timelines of users who are under 18 years of age. “Young people are far more likely to see an ad Bingo on the TV or in a betting shop window as they walk to school that they are on Facebook,” a source told TechCrunch. Ditto users from outside the UK — who also will not see any ads.
Facebook stands to make a lot of money off this if the app takes off since the company collects a 30% commission on transactions within an app. It’s not known whether that’s the way the deal is constructed here.
If online gambling becomes more freely available in the United States, you’d better believe that Facebook will jump on that action. Still to come: free drinks shooting out of your browser.
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