Crowdpark's Pet Vegas joins the casino games bandwagon on Facebook

Will 2012 be the year that Facebook turns into a digital Atlantic City? (Depending on how you look at it, that's both a great and a terrible thing.) Berlin, Germany-based Crowdpark has launched two new games on Facebook: Pet Vegas and AnteUp, both of which provide gambling without physical returns on digital investments, VatorNews reports.

"It's an app that you can use really easy," Crowdpark co-founder and CPO Ingo Hinterding explained to VatorNews. "With Twitter, you have 140 words to post, AnteUp is doing the same thing with social betting. There is no real app that allows people to keep tracks of their bets. With AnteUp, you can follow the bet."

Pet Vegas, however, is simply a slots game targeting women aged 30 to 50 years old, much like offerings by Zynga, PopCap, Playtika and DoubleDown Interactive. Unfortunately, Crowdpark's Bet Tycoon didn't do so hot on Facebook, but Hinterding tells VatorNews that the company has learned from that.

"It didn't live up to our expectations. But we learned a lot," Hinterding told VatorNews, pointing out that AnteUp is a result of those lessons. "People love to bet. But we have to make it simple and easy to use... Simplicity of making a bet is more important than having the most features."

These are far from the first betting games on Facebook, but Crowdpark looks to be beside the rest of Facebook's top game makers whenever the network opens the floodgates for real-money gambling in social games. Hold on to your wallets.

Click here to play Pet Vegas and here to play AnteUp on Facebook Now >

Are you a fan of slots games on Facebook? What do you make of this trend, and will it inevitably change all social games? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.