According to an eGaming Review articlepublished on Monday, “Zyngahas opened a tender for a real money poker platform, with a number of leading e-gaming suppliers understood to be competing for the potentially lucrative contract.” The potential suitors include the likes of GTECH G2 and Playtech, the latter of which owns and operates the massive iPoker Network.

Just how big is Zynga, which is highly integrated within the social networking site Facebook? PokerScout, a traffic watchdog site, added play money tracking last week. Not surprisingly, Zynga is perched atop the chart with a seven-day running average of 121,400 players. PokerScout pointed out, “That’s more than twice the size of the total real money poker market, which demonstrates not only the wide reach of play money poker, but also the benefits of being associated with Facebook.”

Around the Fourth of July, Zynga reportedly made a “verbal offer” for the Ongame Network, which bwin.party is selling as a surplus asset. The Ongame Network had originally been promised to Nevada-based Shuffle Master, but that deal fell through after Shuffle Master balked due to European market concerns. Zynga apparently leads a pack of five suitors for the Ongame Network, which includes rooms like bwin.

EGR added that both Intralotand Microgamingare also reportedly “in the running” to be Zynga’s real money poker partner. The U.K. news outlet divulged, “A senior source within one of the bidding companies confirmed the tender, but refused to reveal whether it was at an advanced stage or which channels the deal would cover, though it is thought to cover online and mobile.”

Zynga and Facebook are both publicly traded and will report their quarterly earnings this week. Zynga, which will file its Q2 2012 earnings report on Wednesday, “is currently expected to report a 24% gain in revenues for the second quarter compared with the same period last year,” according to a Market Watch report. “Analysts are also expecting a gain in bookings in the middle single digits over last year’s quarter.”

Zynga went public in December on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange under the symbol “ZNGA” and closed Tuesday’s trading in New York down $0.18, or 3.44%, to $4.91. The stock debuted at $10 and, therefore, is off about 50% since its IPO eight months ago. It once fetched as much as $15.91 per share and its all-time low is $4.45. The company reported a quarterly loss the last time out.

Facebook went public in May and is traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol “FB“. It closed Tuesday’s session down $0.30, or 1.04%, to $28.45, about 25% off its IPO price of $38. Although Facebook has fared better than Zynga, according to an analyst quoted by USA Today, “If Facebook doesn’t figure out how to provide marketers with better performance and better metrics, we could reach a tipping point where a lot of big budget marketers figure out their money could be better and more accountably spent elsewhere.”

What happens if Zynga’s rumored pursuit of the Ongame Network comes to fruition? Would it abandon all plans with companies like Playtech and Microgaming? EGR speculated, “It is unknown whether the potential acquisition of Ongame would see the tender cancelled. However, it all but confirms Zynga’s plans to move beyond the Facebook platform and into real money gambling after numerous hints from senior executives in the past few months.”

In June, Zynga hired a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firmto focus on “legislation pertaining to regulation and taxation of internet gambling and privacy and internet policy,” according to The Hill. Poker Players Alliance Vice President of Player Relations Rich TheEngineer Muny reacted positively to the news by saying, “This very welcome news. The more pro-poker lobbying, the better off we are.”

Nevada and Delaware appear to be just months away from offering real money online poker within their respective states. How Zynga plans to fit into a state-by-state legalization of the game remains to be seen.