The gambling industry is awash with companies who work relentlessly to provide players with the best gambling experiences. Among these are online casinos, management software developers, and game studios that craft the latest and greatest games.
Whatever casino sites you prefer to play on, you will almost always find Evolution Gaming titles in their catalogs. The studio started small but experienced a meteoric rise since its founding to become one of the industry’s leaders.
Here is the incredible history of Evolution Gaming and how it has become one of the most recognizable names in gambling today.
Beginning of Evolution Gaming
Founded in 2006, Evolution Gaming began as a small company in Sweden that worked alongside other operators to develop new systems and improve on existing ones.
Within three years, however, the company experienced such growth that it decided to launch its own studio in Riga, Latvia, and unveiled what it had been working on behind closed doors.
Evolution’s Live Casino
While the internet had become a part of everyday life for many by 2009, technologies like video streaming and high-bandwidth internet were still relatively uncommon. Although they existed, they didn’t come close to the clarity and speed we now take for granted.
Despite this, Evolution wanted to bring the live gambling experience to players gambling online. As such, their first significant unveiling was that of the Evolution Live Casino.
This software revolutionized the gambling scene and allowed players to play in real-time with a live dealer and against each other. Within one year of its release, Evolution Gaming signed deals with some of the largest casino brands, including 888 Group and Unibet, to provide the software for their use.
Following this, the company’s meteoric rise continued after it became the first live dealer provider to be granted a license to operate by the ADM, the Italian gambling regulator. The group then expanded its offering even further by taking advantage of the power of smartphones and releasing mobile slots and various live casino options for mobile gambling.
Expansion
Amidst the incredible development and release of new games and an ever-evolving live casino offering, Evolution Gaming was working hard on expanding to new markets. Already established in some areas of the European Union, they found access to more markets.
Among these was a license to operate in Malta—where they promptly opened a new studio in 2014—and the granting of a license by the UK Gambling Commission. Around this time, it opened additional studios in Spain and Belgium.
In 2015, the company was officially listed as a public entity on the Nasdaq in Stockholm. Sales for company shares skyrocketed, and Evolution Gaming quickly became one of the fastest-selling companies in Europe.
Riding the wave of success the extensive listing provided, the company expanded again by opening a studio in Romania and engineering hubs in Estonia and the Netherlands. By 2017, the company was listed on the Nordic Nasdaq.
A pivotal year in the expansion of the company was 2018. After acquiring Ezugi, another live casino developer, the company made its first move outside of Europe by opening a new studio in Vancouver, Canada, and its first live casino studio in New Jersey, USA.
Under contract with Unibet, the New Jersey expansion was Evolution Gaming’s first foray into the United States. Within months, however, the company pressed even further into the market, signing an agreement with Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City to provide live casino services.
Acquisitions
While the acquisition of Ezugi didn’t draw much attention in 2018, the spree of purchases made by Evolution Gaming in 2020 caught the attention of the entire iGaming industry. Within the year, the company acquired some of the biggest developers in the sector.
NetEnt, NetEnt Casino, and Red Tiger were part of these acquisitions and made Evolution Games a household name, adding the thousands of titles developed by these studios to the brand umbrella. In the same year, two more live casino locations were added in the USA and Lithuania.
Acquiring these well-known brands made international headlines in the sector, but the company didn’t stop innovating. In 2020, Evolution Gaming also launched the first live craps game and rebranded to Evolution.
The following year saw the company just as busy acquiring competition studios. Digiwheel officially became part of the Evolution Group at the start of the year, as did Big Time Gaming a short while later.
Once the contracts sealing the deal on these purchases were confirmed, the company again made news. For the 12th year running, it was granted the Live Casino Supplier of the Year award at the EGR B2B awards.
Expanding further into the United States by launching in West Virginia and opening a second live casino in New Jersey in 2022, the company showed no signs of slowing. Acquiring Nolimit City, Evolution also launched yet another studio in Connecticut.
Among all this, the company was among the first to launch on the first day the Ontario iGaming market opened. This almost immediate readiness helped secure the brand in Canada and ensure players are given the unrivaled gambling experience the brand is famous for.
Moving Forward
Despite starting out as a small development studio, Evolution (as it is now called) has made incredible leaps and bounds in its growth. Expanding more quickly than almost anyone could have estimated, the brand is now a global superpower in the industry.
With brands like NetEnt and Big Time Gaming under the Evolution umbrella, there is no doubt that the brand is likely to continue to grow. With revenue in Q1 2022 climbing to an incredible $350 million, the brand has demonstrated that it can weather almost any storm and continues to grow exponentially.