When Shuffle Master’s bid for the Ongame Network was declared deadlast week, the world waited for a new buyer to come forward. On Tuesday, while most of the community’s attention was focused on the conclusion of the World Series of Poker’s Big One for One Drop tournament in Las Vegas, eGamingReview(EGR) dropped a bombshell, revealing that the social gaming giant Zyngahad made a “verbal offer” for the Ongame Network.

However, Zynga isn’t the only company in the mix, so a sale appears to be far from a sure bet. EGR divulged, “Sources close to the matter have confirmed to eGR that Zynga is at the front of a five-company queue interested in buying the bwin.party-owned Ongame, a group comprised of both operators and B2B suppliers.” bwin.party owns sites like WPT Pokerand bwin and is selling off the Ongame Network as a “surplus asset.”

Zynga is heavily entrenched in Facebook, as the latter derived 16% of its revenue from the former in the first quarter of 2012, according to Fox Business. Zynga’s titles include FarmVille, Mafia Wars, Words with Friends, and Zynga Poker. EGR contemplated, “It is currently not known what Zynga’s strategy would be should it acquire Ongame, the industry’s second largest network; however, it would immediately give it a dot-com poker presence in Europe with licensees including Betfair and Betsson.”

Zynga is traded on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange under the symbol “ZNGA” and closed Tuesday’s trading in New York down slightly. Shares of Zynga were fetching $5.40 apiece, down $0.16, or 2.96%.

Zynga’s decline on Tuesday was contrary to the rest of the market, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ were up 0.56% and 0.84%, respectively. The New York markets were closed on Wednesday due to the Independence Day holiday in the United States.

The social gaming giant held its initial public offering, or IPO, last December and its stock has largely tanked since then. ZNGA was trading as high as $15.91 earlier this year, but has lost about half of its value between its IPO date and now.

According to Fox Business, Zynga has made a habit out of profiting off poker, expertise it will need to harness should it purchase the Ongame Network: “Zynga Poker has managed to monetize mobile and remains the No. 7 grossing app on iOS. Poker apps have been profitable across the board, including Texas Poker by KamaGames, which is the 26th top grossing app.”

In April, EGR published an article saying that Zynga was “in talks” with Wynn Resorts International about “a potential e-gaming partnership.” Zynga Founder and CEO Mark Pincus said at the time, “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.”

According to PokerScout, the Ongame Network is the fifth largest worldwide and has a seven-day running average of 1,680 real money ring game players to go along with a 24-hour peak of 4,161. It does not accept U.S. players.

Shuffle Master, which is based in Nevada, pulled out of its planned purchase of the Ongame Network, citing “business conditions in Europe.” The company said last week, “Business conditions in Europe have deteriorated since February and as a result, it has become evident to us that Ongame’s operations post-acquisition will not achieve the near-term results we initially expected and will require a larger ongoing investment than anticipated.”

The deal between Shuffle Master and Ongame was agreed to earlier this year and had a price tag of €19.5 million. bwin.party officials quickly reiterated their desire to sell off the network despite the setback, saying that they were “re-engaging with other third parties that have expressed an interest in acquiring Ongame.”