According to Facebook the Mafia Wars game has 19.6M monthly actives. This is incredible. This represents around 10 times Betfair's registered user base.
I have to admit that I've been through periods when I've been checking the game hourly. Why? What brings people back to the game again and again? In comparison with modern day console or PC games Mafia Wars looks very primitive. However, what Zynga have perfected is a rewards and reputation system that rivals any gambling product in terms of stickiness.
On the face of it, earning dollars by robbing people in Mafia Wars and building a gambling bank by betting on Football may appear to be quite distant. However, both activities are pressing the same psychological reward buttons in users brains.
Therefore, it is a natural extension of Mafia Wars to introduce features like lotteries. Customers who become absorbed with accumulating points and virtual currency in the game are a natural audience for risk based games like lotteries.
You can buy lottery tickets in Mafia Wars for 2 reward points. Reward points can be earned, or bought using a credit card. The lottery prizes are virtual goods or more reward points. Wait, Zynga have created a lottery where you can use real money to buy a ticket and they create the prizes. Sounds like a great business.
With a potentially massive target market of prescreened customers I see huge potential in the Zynga model. This is a great example of how to integrate gambling with mass market social media.
The only question I have is why don't Facebook shut them down? Perhaps Zynga have found a socially acceptable model of gambling that is accetpable to Facebook. If this is the case then they are certainly on to something big.
