Zynga’s Facebook Hold’em is still pulling in the Punters

Just mention Facebook or fb hold’em to most serious hold’em gamers and you’ll likely receive grunts of disapproval and outright laughter to suggest that any Facebook player could challenge them or compete with major operators

But the reality is the Texas Hold’em Poker program built by Facebook has over 15 million monthly users, far exceeding the numbers that the so-called dedicated poker saloons like PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker can boast of. Still growing at a phenomenal rate and translated into many different languages including Mandarin Chinese. In addition the App is available for mobile in 18 languages in Android, Windows and iPhone.

Recently Zynga announced that the real money version is going to be offered to players outside of the United States from next year.

Even the makers of the Software are stunned at its success. Texas Hold’Em has become Zynga’s most popular game and is constantly in the top 5 games played on Facebook or fb and MySpace. Both Facebook and Zynga continue to be surprised by how successful it has been.

Texas Hold’em was also Zynga’s first activity and the one that turned the once new and struggling public games company, fronted by Mark Pincus, into an on the internet leader that generates more than $100 a year.

It was no mistake that the Game has been instrumental in driving Zyngaon Facebook to the top has social networking involvement. Poker is such an international game and the playing of Texas Hold’em has become most popular and fashionable. It thus made sense for people to join their friends for a regular session of Poker irrespective of where they were at the time. It is now possible for a game to be played by players actually in Japan, Germany, England, Australia and Brazil as well as anywhere in the US. (OK the time zones will clash horribly but that is just geography).

Facebook has linked up with the World Series of Poker to start playing for real money in a first ever public live transition. Two lucky champions got the chance to perform in the 2009 WSOP Primary Event and one of them created it as far as Day 3 of the famous occasion. It is only a matter of time that people who learned the game on Facebook start competing with the big players in earnest.

Zynga’s Texas Hold’em is the biggest game in the world with 35 million players At some point a champ will appear that learned to play well on Zynga’s Facebook game. The Games of Texas Hold’em became popular in 2003 when Chelsea Moneymaker took down the WSOP Primary Event after winning his way into the competition through a $39 PokerStars satellite.

Respected English gambling correspondent Shelley Rubenstein said a Primary Event champ coming from Facebook or fb could possibly be the stimulus for a similar growth.

“I think it would help open Texas Hold’em up to a whole new set of of players” she said. “A whole new group that would otherwise have no interest in the experience.”