Zynga Shares Rise On Strength Of Nevada Online Casino Bill

Zynga has been positioning themselves for this for the past several years. On Thursday, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval signed an online gambling bill that will bring Internet casinos to Sin City by the end of the year. Investors reacted to that news by purchasing stock in Zynga.

The company that has created social networking game giants MafiaWars, Farmville, and Zynga Poker, saw their stock rise by ten percent on Monday. Analysts believe the rise in stock price was a result of the Nevada law change, coupled with Zynga letting go one percent of their employees.

Zynga has already started the movement towards real money gambling on their social networking platforms. The signing of the online gambling bill in Nevada ensures that there will soon be operational online casinos in Nevada, and Zynga has plans on being one of those sites.

Nevada had previously passed online gambling legislation, but lawmakers acted quickly in recent weeks to pass a bill that would allow for Nevada to enter into agreements with other states that pass similar laws. The agreements would allow the states to accept customers from each other.

Sandoval and Nevada lawmakers made it a point last week to reiterate how Nevada is the gaming leader in the US. The laws they are passing are evidence, according to analysts, that their hopd on that title is stronger than ever.

New Jersey will likely be the next state to authorize online casinos, although that may no occur for another couple of weeks. Nevada online casinos are expected to be operational by the summer.

As for Zynga, the company has seen its stock rise nearly fifty percent from the start of 2013. The rise is tied to the company’s movement towards accepting real-money bets on games that have hundreds of millions of players on the Facebook platform. Zynga closed several offices in the US over the past month in an effort to streamline their business in preparation for the online gambling boom in the US.