Zynga & Best Buy offering $100,000 in prizes in Game Card redemption contest

If you are the kind that doesn't have a problem spending real money on your Facebook games, Zynga has partnered with electronics retailer Best Buy to offer over $100,000 in prizes in a new contest for users that redeem Zynga Game Cards purchased at Best Buy over the next month.

To be clear, this is a contest - just because you redeem a Game Card that you purchased at Best Buy, that doesn't guarantee you a prize. However, for a handful of lucky players, there are some massive (and might I say extremely awesome) prizes at stake. Here's a look at what's being given away:

$5,000 Reward Zone Certificates (Best Buy's proprietary rewards program)
Two Computer Packages (each valued at $2500)
One Home Theater Package (valued at $1500)
Ten Apple iPads
Ten Xbox 360 gaming consoles
$500, $200, $100, and $50 Reward Zone Certificates

See? I told you there were a bunch of great prizes up for grabs. All you'll need to do to enter is purchase a Game Card corresponding to particular Zynga games - FarmVille, Cafe World, Mafia Wars, YoVille, FrontierVille or Treasure Isle - and redeem that card on Facebook for the appropriate premium currency. Each time you redeem a card, you'll receive an entry into the contest, which will end at the end of January. For those that want a free entry, you can also enter by mail (see here for how to do so). Again, there is no limit for how many entries you can receive - every purchased Game Card will result in one entry for one particular Facebook ID (that is, whoever redeems the Card gets the entry, and that's it).

Zynga giving away 250 Cafe Cash on Cafe World fan page for Mother's Day

While many Cafe World players will fondly remember the days of mass amounts of free Cafe Cash, the supply has slowed in recent months. This makes Zynga's announcement all the more exciting - on Mother's Day, to celebrate mothers, Zynga will throw five separate Trivia Giveaways on the Cafe World fan page on Facebook.

These trivia giveaways will likely be about Cafe World and its features, although Community Manager Pinky Chefcadero didn't exactly make the theme clear. What we do know, however, is that these contests will be held from 12 PM PST to 8 PM PST on Sunday, May 8 - Mother's Day proper. Also, if you play the game anytime this weekend, you'll receive two free Instant Spices, just as a way for the Cafe World team to say "thanks" for our patience and continued support.

Each of these five trivia giveaways will offer 50 Cafe Cash as the final prize, which is enough to purchase either a ton of additional spices for your cafe, or even finish most of a Catering Order for you automatically (among dozens of other opportunities). Since contests like this don't come around very often, you might want to set your alarms for 12PM tomorrow - just make sure you spend some quality time with mom first, before abandoning her for the Cafe World fun.