Miss any of the day’s biggest poker stories? You’ve come to the right place. In this edition of the Nightly Turbo, we’re bringing you the launch of PokerStars on Facebook, the failed casino plans of the New York Mets, and more.

In Case You Missed It:

In 2005, Scott Lazar made the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event. What has he been up to lately? Lazar sat down with Chad Holloway for the latest Where Are They Now piece.

Ryan Stevenson won the 2012-13 World Series of Poker Circuit Harrah’s Tunica Main Event on Monday. Read about Stevenson’s road to victory in our WSOPC recap.

Ever needed poker advice at the table but didn’t have a coach? MagicHoldem offers a new companion tool that serves as the next best thing to your own real-life poker coach.

PokerStars on Facebook

On Tuesday, PokerStars announced that its free-to-play site, PokerStars.net, has launched on Facebook. The product will now compete with Zynga Poker and other poker applications on Facebook’s social platform, potentially cutting into Zynga’s sizable lead in the play-money realm.

“This is part of our ongoing research and development efforts, and is just one of a whole range of areas that we are working on,” Eric Hollreiser, PokerStars’ head of corporate communications, told PokerNews on Tuesday.

Hollreiser added that the product was launched it in beta to test it and ensure that it is up to PokerStars’ high-standard. “There’s still a lot of work to be done, and while the beta testing is just beginning, we will allow new participants to join as and when we are able to do so,” he said.

PokerStars’ Facebook application has a similar look and feel to the PokerStars.net platform, even offering the popular Zoom Poker format. Players who already have a PokerStars account can access the PokerStars.net application using their existing login information, and they’ll find their accounts’ play-money chip balance upon login.

More information on the PokerStars Facebook app can be found at PokerStars.net.

Mets Denied Casino in New York City

The New York Mets plan to build a Las Vegas-style casino next to Citi Field, the team’s home stadium, has been rejected by the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

According to the New York Post, Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz used their real estate company, Sterling Equities, for a proposal to build a “massive casino with gaming tables and slots, a 500-room, full service hotel, 1.8 million square feet of retail and amenities to the Willets Point Development site in Queens.”

The proposal was pitched in Sept. 2011 and offered $100 million to purchase 62 acres for the development of the project. Shinnecock Indian Nation would have operated the casino, but live-dealer casinos are not legal in New York except on tribal grounds, posing potential roadblocks for the venue to offer table games.

The casino plans were initially created after owners settled their financial troubles related to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. The Mets owners were allegedly profiting from the scheme, resulting in a settled lawsuit of $162 million.

This week, rather than approving the Mets’ casino proposal, Mayor Bloomberg’s administration granted 23 of the 62 acres of land to be used toward a $3 billion retail and entertainment complex, minus the casino. City officials pulled the casino from the Willets Point plan partly because they thought the government-approval process would take too long, sources told the Post.

“The submission that included a gaming use was quickly dismissed as unviable,” a spokesman with the city’s Economic Development Corp. told the Post. “A different plan is now moving through the approvals process for a project that will create a dynamic new destination, hundreds of units of affordable housing, and thousands of jobs.”

Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates said the casino was bad business. “It’s hard to think of anything more corrupt than putting a casino in the middle of low-income communities,” he told the Post.

For more read the full story at the New York Post.

Movement in Delaware

Legal, real-money online poker could make its way to Delaware by Sept. 30, 2013, according to a recent proposal by the Delaware State Lottery.

On Monday, iGaming Business reported that Delaware issued a request for proposal for implementing an Internet gaming system and associated services solution. The proposal also calls for companies to bid for the rights to provide the technology platform alongside operations manager services. The state wants the Internet system up and running no later than Sept. 30.

“The Delaware State Lottery is issuing this request for proposal to invite interested vendors to submit proposals for the implementation of an Internet gaming system and services solution, which is a turnkey offering inclusive of a back-end technology platform, operations management and support services, as well as an array of game content from multiple vendors to offer casino table games, video lottery games, poker, bingo and keno,” read a statement from the Delaware State Lottery.

“The solution may at some point in the future integrate with the Delaware State Lottery’s future Internet lottery system and Internet sports wagering system, which does not currently exist and is not included in this request for proposal.”

Gaming is a large part of Delaware’s budget, generating more than $250 million annually in tax dollars compared to a state budget of about $3.4 billion. The new forms of online gambling are expected to generate an additional $7.75 million for the state in 2013.

Delaware and Nevada are the only two states to authorize interstate online poker. New Jersey could join the list this week if Gov. Chris Christie elects not to veto the online gambling bill that was placed on his desk last month. Christie has until Thursday, Feb. 7 to act on the bill.

iGaming Business has more.

And The Winner Is…

On Monday night, members of the gaming community gathered in London for the 2013 International Gaming Awards. PokerStars was among a list of winners who took home an award, specifically the Online Poker Operator of the Year.

PokerStars defeated 14 nominees to be named best global poker operator. “This has been a year of great achievement for PokerStars and this award is recognition of the hard work and dedication of our employees around the world who are setting the standard for quality in the industry,” said Eric Hollreiser, PokerStars’ head of corporate communications.

A list of developments in 2012 contributed to PokerStars being recognized at Monday’s event. In 2012, PokerStars released a mobile app that allowed players to play anywhere and anytime. PokerStars also launched a new gaming format, Zoom Poker, which enabled players to play faster. The MicroMillions tournament series was also created and launched in March last year, as well as the Turbo Championship of Online Poker (TCOOP).

PokerStars also expanded with new regulated licenses in Malta (PokerStars.EU), Denmark (PokerStars.DK), and Spain (PokerStars.es), which led to the signing of Spanish tennis superstar Rafael Nadal to Team PokerStars.

Other winners at the event included Melco Crown Entertainment, which was awarded Casino/Integrated Resort of the Year, and Skrill, which won Payment Solutions Provider Company of the Year.

PokerStars was also a finalist for Socially Responsible Operator of the Year, Mobile Poker Operator of the Year, and Gaming Industry Fair Play.

The PokerStars Blog has more.

Grospellier Versus Cody

Team PokerStars Pros Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Jake Cody were seated next to each other on Day 2 of the PokerStars European Poker Tour Deauville Main Event. Kristy Arnett caught up with both of them for the latest edition of Versus.

Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook today!

Check out the original source here! Originally from PokerNews.com

November 22 2011, Brett Collson

With more than 30 million active users per month, Zynga Poker is the largest online poker room in the world. The free-to-play site dwarfs real-money operators like PokerStars and PartyPoker with its laid back, social platform, and has successfully expanded into a sleeping giant of the industry without any intention of shifting toward the real-money market.

Zynga is so big, in fact, that the International Federation of Poker invited the company to compete in the inaugural Nations Cup, pitting six members of the Zynga Poker community against the best poker players from all over the world. Because its 30 million monthly users are more than the entire population of power-poker countries like Australia, Denmark and Sweden combined, Zynga was offered the opportunity to participate as a “digital nation.”

We recently sat down with Zynga Poker General Manager Lo Toney to discuss Zynga’s growth in the poker industry, its involvement in the IFP Nations Cup, and more.

Can you give us a brief background of Zynga Poker and how the company got off the ground?

Zynga started in July 2007, and Zynga Poker was actually our very first game as a company. In addition to Facebook, Zynga Poker is also available on mobile devices like the iPhone and Android devices, and we’re also on Google Plus. Our games are free to play, so anyone can come online to play them. We have a virtual goods model, so the way that we make money through Zynga Poker is by people paying for (virtual) poker chips.

After four years, we’re the world’s largest poker game. We have more than 7 million people who play our games every day on Facebook or one of the other networks or devices, and on a monthly basis we have more than 30 million people who play our games each month.

Why types of poker players are you looking to draw to Zynga?

We have a couple of different types of poker players. We have the player who comes on that is more focused on the competitive aspect of the game, and we have players who are new to the game and have never played poker before. So we have players who are looking for great players that they can play with, and we also have people who are coming online that want the social aspect.

Has business at Zynga changed at all since the Department of Justice shut down PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker?

We have always been the world’s largest poker site and we’re happy to able to offer our free-to-play game of poker to anyone that wants to come and play. The ability for us to bring on new users is fantastic, and if those users are very competitive players, the beauty of Zynga Poker with our 7 million users daily is that even people looking for competitive games are going to be able to find that.

Did you see any noticeable increase in new users since April 15, 2011?

As the world’s largest poker game I think our scale is so large that it takes a lot to be able to tip the scale for us. We were the world’s largest poker game before those actions were taken by the DOJ, and we remain the world’s largest poker game after those actions.

In the past you’ve denied any plans of shifting to a real-money platform. Are you still sticking to that, even if it’s a few years down the road?

Zynga’s business model is free-to-play and we monetize the virtual goods. That’s our business model. We have no interest in going after the real-money space. We have been able to build a very nice business for ourselves with our heads down focusing on our existing business model.

What are some of Zynga’s goals going forward?

While we don’t make any forward-looking statements, what I can say is that on a daily basis our main objective is to make sure that we can offer our poker players the best experience possible. For the people that want a more social aspect, on a daily basis we’re constantly striving to make sure that we can offer the most fun and the most social poker game.

Let’s shift to the IFP Nations Cup. What does this event represent for poker and how did Zynga get involved?

We’re really excited about the IFP because our main focus is on our 7 million people that play our game every day. We had six passionate players who represented our community and were really excited about the opportunity to go and play in a live tournament. For some of them, it was their very first time participating and the fact that they were able to play against some of the pros from the other nations is just an unbelievable experience.

The IFP approached us with a very novel concept. They said, ‘Well, you have 30 million people that play your game every month. That’s almost the size of a country. Why don’t we have a digital country?’ We thought that was pretty exciting for our community.

Can you talk about the unique variant of “duplicate poker” and how it could further prove that poker is a game of skill?

I’m going to defer on trying to explain how duplicate poker is a game of skill. What I can say is that for our poker players, the passion that they bring is going to be unmatched even by the people that are there to play professionally. What we want to happen is to give our players the best possible experience because they’re so passionate about poker. They’re the ones who are playing for the Zynga community.

What are some of the things Zynga Poker players can look forward to in the coming year?

The main thing we’re focused on at the moment is expanding what we’ve started at Zynga Poker. We feel that we can give our fans and users something that they’ve never experienced, and that experience is Zynga Casino. What we decided to do is create another app for Zynga Casino, and the first game that’s going to join Zynga Poker in Zynga Casino is going to be Zynga Bingo.

It’s a game that people can look forward to playing, and they’re going to have a fantastic time being able to reminisce and go back to a game that maybe they were introduced to the first time by their parents or grandparents. We’re going to make sure people know what the game is, but we’re going to add some twists. We’re going to make it fun, exciting, and, of course, we’re going to make it social because that’s what we do best.

Follow PokerNews on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.

Follow Brett Collson on Twitter – @brettcollson