With Facebook’s much talked about stock market debut, many believed that the sky is the limit for the world’s largest social network. However there have been gambling industry experts who have posed the question if the developing U.S. gambling market could ultimately result in a massive loss of earnings for Facebook?

It seems a reasonable bet that many social gaming players would be attracted to social gambling formats like that of scratchcards. While considered a lighter form of gambling online scratch cards seem to be ideally poised to capture the millions of people looking for a social form of real money gambling that can reward them will million pound game jackpots.

As all our readers are aware the legal situation in the U.S. reading online gambling has drastically changed in the last few months due to the U.S. Justice Department’s revised stance on the Wire Act of 1961. In effect this means that the main legal stumbling block for legalizing intent gambling has been removed and many individual states are in the process of attempting to pass legislature to legalize online gambling.

With scratch games there is something for everyone. Even for those online players who enjoy casino games, there are scratchcards that combine a casino them while remaining true to the original format.

Many individual states are hoping for a federal decision which would result in online gambling being regulated and controlled for all states. What seems to be clear is that it is just a matter of time before individual stated legalize internet gambling. The question of if has been replaced of when.

Tough economic times have resulted in many states looking to online gambling like scratch cards to get them out of economic strife. Taxation from scratch games could go a long way in funding many state projects like health and education.

Presently Facebook and other social networks offer many free-to-play casino like games that reward players in virtual currencies. These virtual casino based games like Zynga Poker account for a massive 12% of Facebook’s total revenues.

Scratchcards are the ideal example of how the line between social gaming and social gambling is narrowing. With so many scratch games based on social themes like romance, sport and travel it is hard to sometimes to classify scratch cards as solely a gambling format.

The seemingly imminent legalization of real money gambling as got many social gaming developers like Zynga very concerned as they have much to lose from US regulation. Should online gambling become a reality it is safe to assume that many millions of online players will prefer to start playing real money games on real online casinos. This could result in many millions if not billions lost for popular social games.

Ivor Jones of Numis Securities who is a leisure analyst summed it up,” Social gaming companies currently trading on high stock market valuations, together with those which have paid high prices to enter the space, have much to fear from regulation.”

We can only hope that common sense will prevail. With online gambling becoming a reality, it only makes sense that social gaming and social gambling such as scratchcards meet in the middle to benefit all parties. There is no reason why lighter forms of gambling like scratchies should be grouped together with heavier form of gambling who are sometimes associated with social problems.