Washington tribe gets into social gaming

The Muckleshoot Indian tribe from Puget Sound in Washington State has inked an agreement with Bookie Mania Ltd that will see it enter into an equity partnership with the social gaming company.

The Bookie Mania game is a non-gambling freemium social betting product that is scheduled to launch globally on Facebook in the Fall of 2012, followed by a roll out on other platforms and in multiple languages, a spokesman revealed this week.

The game uses virtual currency to bring together the social gaming phenomenon with the power of a betting game. It was created by online gambling industry veteran Rohin Malhotra, md of Boofel Enterprises, an international gaming consultancy.

Malhotra is better known in the industry for his spell as CEO of World Poker Tour Enterprises, where he helped lead the international expansion and gaming operations that included land-based events and successful launches of smart-phone, subscription and Facebook social games.

More recently, he was a director of Chiligaming, helping to expand and re-purpose it into a online gambling and social gaming business-to-business company, culminating its sale to Bally Technologies earlier this year .

Malhotra said the Muckleshoot deal “…provides our business with more than just investment but also a deep relationship with this resourceful tribe, its operation and its people.”

The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe owns a number of successful enterprises that including a casino, bingo hall and a luxury hotel resort and spa.