Zynga on Wednesday will launch a beta version of Texas Poker in Taiwan and Hong Kong, making making it the first Zynga game in Asia (the game is not available in mainland China). Already people in about 100 countries play the game, which launched in July 2007. More than 28 million play it monthly.

The game will be localized with traditional Chinese language, as well as characters and cultural references. For instance, all Zynga Texas Poker players in Taiwan and Hong Kong start with a stash of 8,888 Vegas-style poker chips. The inaugural monthly grand prize for the “ShootOut” tournament lets local players compete for a grand prize of $880,000 Taiwanese dollars. (Eight is considered a lucky number locally, hence the launch date of 8/18, the 8,888 welcome chips and $880,000 cash prize.)

More Poker facts, courtesy of Zynga:
– Every day, Zynga Poker players spend 685 years’ worth of time bluffing, going all in, and winning. (360 million minutes of play time daily)
– Every minute – 90,000 players within Zynga Poker go “all in.”
– 5.6 million people globally play Zynga Poker daily (54 times the number of people that visit Las Vegas daily).
– After only 3 years, Zynga Poker is one of Zynga’s most popular games and is the #3 most popular application on Facebook globally.
– On an average day 375,000 Zynga Poker players are simultaneously playing together live.