Rumors of a tie-up between the two first surfaced way back in the last month that we had a sequential day, month, year and time (November 2011 for those of you with brain-ache). CEO Brian Mattingley admitted there was some substance to the rumors in August and that after dabbling in a little foreplay they were ready to make REAL social gambling babies.
After the announcement, Itai Freiberger, COO at 888, stated the firm are “very excited” by real-money gambling on Facebook and the rollout follows a free-to-play offering that achieved a “significant audience”. For the current release they’ve worked closely with Facebook to make sure they “introduce the best of both worlds of real money and social gaming”.
Facebook Europe’s head of games partnerships, Julien Codomiou, stated that they’re “really pleased” to be partnering with 888 due to their “strong reputation on both the quality and safety of their games”. Was the announcement all for the benefit of the markets though? Well if it was…it hasn’t worked – yet. 888 Holdings’ share price was down 1 percent in early trading this morning and we’ll have to wait and see what the US market thinks of the deal.