Digital Chocolate, other big social devs jump into real-money gambling

Four more high-profile social game studios are jumping into the real-money gambling space with the hope of securing an early mover advantage, including Digital Chocolate and Big Fish. Several major developers have rushed to enter the market ever since Facebook began allowing real-money gambling games on its UK site three months ago -- mobile game publisher Glu Mobile has announced multiple gambling titles planned for release, and Zynga intends to launch its first gambling initiative in the first half of 2013. And now Betable, a San Francisco-based start-up that operates a self-titled gambling platform for social game developers, has partnered with four developers to help them bring their titles to the space. Its private beta platform enables developers to release their games that employ real-money betting without having to deal with legal or licensing issues. One of Betable's newly announced partners, Big Fish, has just released Big Fish Casino UK (pictured) for iOS devices. The free-to-play gambling game has already picked up over 1 million monthly active players, and has become one of the top-grossing mobile titles on the UK App Store. The other three Betable licensees include big social game studios like Digital Chocolate, Slingo (which partnered with Zynga to produce Zynga Slingo, currently the fifth most popular games on Facebook), and Murka (a social casino game-focused developer claiming more than 20 million monthly users for its titles).