What legal online gambling could mean to social gaming

Since 2006, online gambling has been illegal in the United States, forcing the lucrative market overseas. The law has also forced social gaming companies to make their Facebook poker games into strictly fake-money affairs (even though many players buy and sell chips for real money through shady third-party services).

That could all be set to change though, with word that the House Financial Services Committee has passed a measure that would legalize and regulate many forms of online gambling, including online poker. If and when the bill eventually becomes law, social games like Zynga's HoldEm Poker, Playdom's World Series of Poker and the millions of other Facebook poker games would seem perfectly positioned to open up the floodgates for real-money bets (assuming Facebook was willing to allow them to, that is). Apparently we're not the only ones to think so, either -- Business Insider quotes a "source close to Zynga" as saying that the company "would be excited to move into real-money poker given the opportunity."

But why stop there? Legal gambling could spread to all sorts of social games. Imagine an in-game Farmville slot machine that takes real money (in the form of Facebook Credits) and occasionally gives back a Farmville cash jackpot. Or imagine having the ability to bet with friends on the outcome of a Bejeweled Blitz high score contest. With many social games already resembling glorified slot machines, we shudder to think at the addictive (and pocketbook-destroying) potential that real-world gambling could have on the social gaming space.

House, CSI: Miami and NCIS games to air on Facebook this winter

Social gamers are naturally very meta people. Come one, who else would watch an episode of CSI, only to play an episode of CSI: Crime City either during the show or afterward? Ubisoft seems to have struck gold with Facebook games based on TV properties, so the company has announced three more: CSI: Miami, House, M.D.: Critical Cases and NCIS: Major Crimes.

Inside Social Games reports that the games will launch either at the end of this year or early in 2012. In other words, they're coming this winter. The games will play out procedurally, like episodes of their television inspirations. Players will search for clues after identifying victims, patients or suspects and solve cases with the help of friends and non-player characters.

The French game publisher also announced a deal with Loot Drop, designer John Romero's studio that has yet to release its first game, Cloudforest Expedition. No details were given regarding the game, but this marks the third game set to come out of Loot Drop, its first two with publisher RockYou. Ubisoft will also release Ghost Recon Commander for Facebook.

The game will serve as a companion to the publisher's two upcoming Ghost Recon games: Ghost Recon: Future Soldier for console and Ghost Recon: Online for PCs. According to ISG, players will be able to advance in either core game through the Facebook companion and vice versa. We've seen how high-profile companion games do already, but House is poised to be a winner--have you seen how many "Likes" it has on Facebook?