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A fiery debate on the regulation of social casino games

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

Responsible games panelReal-money online-gambling companies have to abide by strict regulations that stop them from milking every last penny from gambling addicts who can’t afford to pay. But makers of social casino games (such as Zynga Poker on Facebook) are under no such restrictions. Should they be?

That was one of the topics debated at the Social Gambling Conference in London on Friday. The discussion put the real-money online-gambling companies at odds with the makers of non-gambling social casino titles, where users pay for virtual goods (such as poker chips) but are not allowed to cash out their winnings.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.