Zynga out of the Ongame acquisition race

The intense speculation that social gaming giant Zynga was among the six companies said to be bidding to acquire the Ongame Poker Network was blunted this week by a news report on the Pokerfuse information site that the San Francisco-based company is not among the current potential suitors.

Although Zynga has been careful not to commit to being interested in the Bwin.Party digital entertainment subsidiary since the Shuffle Master bid fell through earlier this year, it was widely seen as the most likely buyer, given Zynga’s interest in monetising its social gaming offerings and moving into the real money internet sector.

However, quoting an anonymous source on Tuesday Pokerfuse reported that although negotiations for the acquisition of Ongame are on-going, Zynga is not among the bidders.

Although Ongame is a significant enterprise in the online poker industry with around 30 sites on the network, its player base will inevitably shrink when Bwin players are migrated to the PartyPoker site prior to ownership changing hands.

Like a number of other online poker networks, Ongame has seen double-digit declines in traffic since Black Friday.