Facebook Continues Flirting with Gambling

The relationship between Facebook and sports-predicting continues to grow, with around 40,000 users on the popular social networking website installing Euro 2008 predictor applications.

Popular application
The most popular Euro 2008 application was developed by Yahoo Eurosport. The application had over 23,000 users by the beginning of the quarter-final stage, with competitors chasing the ultimate reward of a 42-inch plasma TV.

Users are invited to make their prediction on all the matches, with points received in regard to how close one comes to predicting the correct score.

Continuous flirtation
The introduction of sports-predicting games to Facebook is not a new phenomenon. In March we reported on the US Federal Government's investigation into the website hosting betting on the NCAA basketball tournament. In that case, participants paid an entrance fee, with the winnings split between those whose predictions were closest to the real results.

The open nature of Facebook means any of its more than 80 million users can develop an application when armed with the necessary computer skills. Applications ranging from badges showing support for politicians to quizzes revealing what sort of lover a person is can be added to user profiles at their choosing.

More than 2300 of the approximately 28,000 applications on Facebook are sports-oriented. During the regular football season, users can compete in competitions where they predict the outcomes of games in England, Italy and other popular leagues. This extends to many other sports as well.

From workplace to Facebook
Sports-predicting competitions have been a staple of workplaces around the world for many years. While there is often little or no money exchanged, the popularity of sports-predicting games on Facebook such as Euro 2008 is evidence of the ever-growing link between gambling and the web.