The online social gaming leader Zynga announced on Wednesday that it is taking the first steps toward the possible launch of realmoney online gambling in the United States. It has filed an application for a Preliminary Finding of Suitabilityfrom the Nevada Gaming Control Board, a process estimated to take anywhere from 12 to 18 months to complete.

A Preliminary Finding of Suitability is basically what it sounds like. According to the Nevada Licensing Services website, it is a process by which a person or entity who has not yet been in a position to conduct business in the state that would require licensing can be evaluated to determine if they would be suitable to hold such a license.

In a statement, Zynga’s Chief Revenue Officer Barry Cottle said that while the short-term focus is on Nevada, the longer-term outlook is to be able to offer real money gaming all over the country. “As we’ve said previously, the broader U.S. market is an opportunity that’s further out on the horizon based on legislative developments, but we are preparing for a regulated market,” he explained.

“This filing continues our strategic effort to enter regulated gaming markets in a prudent way,” Cottle added.

Zynga had been saying for some time that it was interested in getting into the gambling space, but it was not until recently that any plans became concrete. In late October, the company announced a partnership with online gambling giant bwin.party to offer real money online poker to residents of the United Kingdom.

The Zynga-branded poker room, which is expected to launch in the first half of 2013, will run on the bwin.party platform. As such, Zynga’s players will be on bwin.party’s poker network, thus sharing tables with its flagship site, PartyPoker. The poker room will use bwin.party’s Gibraltar gaming license, so there will be no licensing obstacles standing in the way.

Should Zynga eventually be granted an online gaming license in Nevada, it is likely that it would partner with a U.S.-based brick-and-mortar gambling firm. In fact, as reported by eGaming Review, Zynga Chief Executive Officer Mark Pincus (pictured) mentioned the Wynn specifically at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecomms Conference in March: “We have incredible respect and admiration for brands and groups like the Wynn… I would expect that you’ll see a lot of these players kind of figure out their go-to-market partnerships for sure before the end of this year.”

While Zynga is a household name in the social gaming realm and has developed extremely popular Facebook games such as Farmville, Mafia Wars, and Zynga Poker, it has gone through quite a financial struggle this year. On December 16, 2011, Zynga went public on the NASDAQ, opening at $11 per share. It has been on a steep decline ever since, not helped by recent defections of top executives and a cut in its quarterly and yearly forecasts.

The stock price fell as low as $2.09 on both November 9 and November 12, with its worst close of $2.10 coming on November 12. It climbed back to a close of $2.62 on November 29, but had since fallen back to $2.30 at the close of the markets on Wednesday.

This news has given Zynga’s stock a healthy bounce on Thursday, as it immediately opened at $2.46 and is currently up to $2.54.

While Zynga’s games are free to play, it earns money through player purchases of in-game currency, items, and vanity trinkets. Facebook’s most recent earnings report revealed that payments from Zynga were 20% lower than last year. The two companies just revised the terms of their 2010 five-year agreement, adjusting it so that Zynga does not have to use Facebook as an exclusive portal for its customers.

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