With a refocus on poker and mobile, Zynga reported revenue of $741 million last year despite not offering real money games.

Zynga Poker

Once again proving there is a thriving poker industry that does not rely on real money play, freeplay app Zynga Poker has shown 44% growth in 2016 compared to 2015.

Parent company Zynga also reported an excellent 2016, reporting revenue of $190.5 million in quarter four, which is up 4% on the previous quarter and 3% on year-on-year. Total revenue was $741 million.

For many years the freeplay Zynga Poker app, which is now ten years old, was considered something of a sleeping giant in online poker, with predictions that it would one day open up its massive database of mobile gamers up to real money play and start a new poker boom. It did briefly experiment with real money poker only to withdraw back to the social gaming market, where most of the revenue comes from buying virtual currency.

Back on the radar

Frank Gibeau

Zynga Poker somewhat fell off the radar of the wider poker industry in recent years, and also from Zynga's own priority list, until now. Zynga CEO Frank Gibeau told VentureBeat that the reason for their recent increase in revenue was a refocussing on some of their older products:

They [Words With Friends and Zynga Poker] weren’t getting enough time and attention. There wasn’t enough investment in those. It really paid off in terms of putting our best talent back onto franchises that have been around for a while and reinvigorating our player base by innovating and adding features.

Zynga Poker showed growth of 44% compared to 2015 and is estimated to make up around 20% (Approx $148.2 million) of Zynga's revenue last year. .

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