Facebookie? Real Gambling Coming to Facebook

Covers.com reported this week that real gambling is once again on the horizon for social media behemoth Facebook. The article stated:

“…(Facebook) announced that it is in negotiations with several operators to install a betting platform and allow real wagering. Facebook reportedly employs a few dozen techs to help ease the transition to money play.

The first target country is England, where wagering is a way of life. Facebook hopes to be up and running early next month, and if the Brits bite, you can bet your beer money that it won’t be long before other European countries are brought into the fold.”

This sounds like a potential win for the betting world, but one has to imagine a possible end product being watered-down and over-regulated to the point that customers would rather just go straight to the source, rather than betting through a casino via Facebook. What would Facebook contribute to the process, if anything?

Further, none of this talk includes bringing such gambling to users in the United States, where the government has an inconsistent track record and likes to poke its nose into such benign activity as office pools. Though the US economy could benefit from the broadening of legalized gambling, the political landscape as it stands will almost certainly keep it off the table at least until after the 2012 election. If ever.

This isn’t a new discussion by any means. CNN reported in 2009 that UK-base Betfair was poised to bring horse racing to Facebook, and at the time it appeared to be a certainty.

It will be interesting to see how this current effort plays out. The betting types that we are say that it results in failure for Facebook.

Should Facebook break through the gambling barrier, it would no doubt be a mad rush from online casinos around the world to jump on the bandwagon in an attempt to cash in on the first wave of Facebook/Internet gambling.

On the other hand, we’ve heard this song and dance before.