Evolution Gaming Looking at Another Stellar Year
Evolution Gaming has been hugely successful since starting out back in 2006. And this is likely to be another year when the company continues to be highly innovative.
As its website proudly states: “We are game creators and game-changers.” Further reading of the site goes a long way towards explaining why it is now a $25 billion company. This is a company that thrives on “pushing limits” and “doing what hasn’t been done”. Its vision is to be the world’s leading provider of online casinos, and nothing it seems will stop it.
When it comes to successful business stories, Evolution will take some beating.
Evolution begins 2022 in a position where it already works with more top-tier operators than other providers in the industry. When it comes to B2B online casino services, they are at the top of the market.
Innovation is a key word when discussing Evolution Gaming. When the online gambling industry began to thrive, Evolution took full advantage of this new way to play. One area in which they have changed the industry is in their provision of live casino games to online sites.
An increasing number of gamblers were going online to play their favourite games. Mostly, this was on video versions of games such as roulette, poker, and blackjack. However, the innovative Evolution Gaming took all of this a big step forward.
They began broadcasting a live casino from studios in Riga. A live casino soon became an integral part of any online gambling site. They gave players the chance to try their luck in an environment that looked just like their local casino.
You could interact with live dealers, and these became extremely popular. 2013 saw them open their 100 live table, and they were the largest single-site casino operation in Europe. The following year saw another studio opened in Cyprus.
The offering is available to dozens of the biggest and most trusted gaming platforms in Europe and here in the UK, giving thousands of players the chance to enjoy live dealer games alongside traditional offerings like slot machines.
Nasdaq success
As the decade progressed, their expansion showed no sign of slowing down. In 2015 they were listed on Nasdaq in Sweden, and over the coming years, more studios opened around Europe, including in Belgium and Romania.
Evolution Gaming wasn’t just interested in European success. 2018 saw them extend their business into Canada and the USA. That year also saw them again illustrate just how innovative a company they are.
Lightning Roulette was launched in 2018 and changed the way a lot of us play this popular game. Variety is so important when going to online gambling sites. You can’t just continually play the same game. Evolution created a game that had the classic elements of roulette but then speeded everything up and gave players the chance to win up to 500x their stake on each spin of the wheel. Three years later, Lightning Blackjack was launched.
Game shows online
Their next step was to bring game shows to online sites. Monopoly Live and Deal or No Deal Live were both introduced in 2019. More game show style games have followed, and playing them online has added even more excitement to gambling sites.
Evolution isn’t ever going to stand still, though. The next move is in Virtual Reality games, with ‘Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt’ launched in 2021. Therefore, it’s no surprise that last year that at the EGR B2B Awards, they won the Live Casino Supplier of the Year Award for the 12 year in a row.
A sign that a company is making continual progress is when they begin to make acquisitions. Ezugi was purchased in 2018, but its expansion went into overdrive two years later. NetEnt, Red Tiger and NetEnt Casino were all acquired. Last year, they purchased Digiwheel and entered an agreement to buy Big Time Gaming.
They continue to expand their operations and now have three live studios in the USA. In December 2021, they became the first live casino provider in Buenos Aires in Argentina.
Their interim report for January to September 2021 (full of very good financial results) mentioned the aim of Evolution Gaming. It is quite simply to “excite and entertain players with the best possible choice of world-class gaming”.
With the online casino market in the USA continuing to grow, this can only be good news for Evolution Gaming. Evolution will be quick off the mark when more states legalise online gambling. That was the case with Connecticut, where they were the first to provide slot games. A live studio in that state is planned, with further expansion in Canada, another target for 2022. So another year of expansion and success lies ahead for Evolution Gaming.