Evolution Gaming

Evolution Gaming launched back in 2006 with ambitious plans to bring a largely untested online casino concept to Europe.  They converted an old building in Riga, Latvia into a dealer studio and developed a high quality live streaming platform for hard table games (blackjack, baccarat, roulette).  While live online casinos had already gained traction in Asia at this time, the story in Europe was very different – it was all about RNG.

Fast forward 4 years,  it’s interesting to take a look at how Evolution Gaming have progressed and also how this progression has driven the industry’s development generally.

No longer a small studio with a few dealers

I was listening to a podcast interview with Fredrik Osterberg (Evolution Gaming’s Sales & Marketing Director) which gave some interesting insights into the operation’s current magnitude.  As at May 2009, their dealer studio contained 16 tables that were serviced by 185 dealers.  The plan was to grow this to around 300 dealers by year end (2009), which equates (assuming dealer to table ratio is maintained) to over 30 tables.

Given the number and quality of new licensee casino sign-ups since May 2009, this plan may well have been a little conservative. Ladbrokes, Sportingbet, Paddy Power, Expekt, 888.com and Unibet have all jumped on board, bringing the platform’s potential customer exposure (ie licensee registered player base) to somewhere around 25 million players.

This growth was evidenced mid last year when the company was forced to add a further 1000 square metres of floor space to their studio to accommodate demand as well as offer licensees fully branded, dedicated tables in addition to the generic tables.

And while the Riga studio will always be the main hub of the operation, Osterberg admitted that expansion to multiple studio locations was, “very possible.”

Driving competitor and industry growth

Evolution’s success in signing many of Europe’s biggest online gambling brands to their platform has of course helped drive the business’ growth.  But it’s done a lot more than that.

Adoption of the platform by William Hill, Party Gaming, Victor Chandler, Gala Coral, in addition to the names mentioned above has provided both widespread exposure to the European online casino playing community as well player confidence and trust engendered through big brand endorsement of the product.  This has no doubt been a catalyst for acceptance of the live gaming concept generally.

Their success has been kind of a proof concept for the live gaming in Europe.  And this meant that competitors wanting to remain at the forefront of the online casino industry had to join the party with comparable products.

Take Playtech as a good illustration.  I’m sure they would have been happy to continue doing very well indeed with their fantastically popular RNG games.  They cost less to operate and in the absence of an exciting alternative  online casino players will continue to play them.

But, when all of a sudden these players are exposed to the option of playing on their PCs but with real cards, wheels and dealers then at least some; maybe many; possibly in time most, may migrate to the new concept.  Playtech are therefore forced to provide a similar offering…and they did – opening a Riga studio early last year (adding to their existing Asian studio offering).

The knock on from this is further European exposure to the concept of live gaming via Playtech’s existing (and considerable) licensee base.

And so it goes.

Osterberg said in the interview last year that he’d be “terribly surprised if there were not more entries into the market.” And he was right.

I’m sure in time live casino gaming will be dominant form of online casino gaming across Europe – intuitively, who would want to play a pretend game with computer generated outcomes when they can play a real one?  And it could be argued that if and when that day comes, Evolution Gaming are largely responsible.

More on Evolution Gaming:

Evolution Gaming platform review

Evolution Gaming blackjack

Evolution Gaming roulette

Evolution Gaming baccarat

2 replies
  1. james
    james says:

    Evolution Gaming is nice article and the story of RNG in Europe is very interesting.Attractive blog well done.

    Reply
  2. Petre
    Petre says:

    I agree that evolution gaming has had a strong impact on hhe live gaming scene in Europe. But they are were following he lead and successes of the pioneering operators who had been around for a while already particularly in Asia. It’s hard to overlook playtech and ho gaming and others that were the real ‘prove of concept’

    I think you are right that live games will become far more popilar in the future but it wil depend on broadband costs and availability across Europe.
    good article

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Sorry....we have to ask *