In 2006, two Swedish businessmen founded Evolution AB, with an eye on bringing live dealer games to online casinos. The business started slowly, focusing on opening studios in Eastern Europe to serve the fast-growing market across the rest of the continent, before expanding globally in the 2010s.
Today, Evolution is the backbone of the live dealer online genre. In the US, estimates suggest it commands about 90% of the market, an incredible feat given the level of competition it faces. It supplies live games to numerous major brands.
You can play Evolution live tables at Caesars Palace online, for instance, which you can join with a Caesars Casino bonus code, but Evolution games are also available at just about every major platform you can think of, from DraftKings to Hard Rock Casino to PokerStars.
The range of games is impressive. From classics like blackjack and roulette to many house-banked poker games based on Texas Hold’em rules, players can have their pick.
A Push to Innovate Live Dealer Experiences
So, what’s the secret of its success? You could probably pin it down into two areas – innovation and aggressive expansion.
The first is the broadest concept, and it can be difficult to quantify, but it’s clear that Evolution was one of the first to recognize that playing with real dealers online could revolutionize the online casino space, especially as it could bring in players who are skeptical of RNG games.
Evolution wasn’t alone in this, and live dealer games weren’t created in a vacuum. Rivals like Playtech and Microgaming were keen to enter the space in the late 2000s. The former, in particular, gave Evolution a run for its money in Europe in the early days of the rollout of these games.
Yet, Evolution always seemed one step ahead. It realized that additional incentives could be added to live games, thus it would add elements like progressive jackpots to live poker and blackjack games.
It also experimented with fusing RNG and live games, allowing players to scoop up bigger prizes with side bets. For the purists, traditional table and card games were obviously available from the get-go.
In a shrewd move, though, Evolution also launched live tables in multiple languages, with a particular focus on Spanish. There were other smart moves, like letting individual casinos brand the live games: DraftKings Casino is one example of a brand that embraced this tactic.
The Game Show Experience Changed the Landscape
In 2019, Evolution delivered its masterstroke, just as it was expanding to open US studios and partnering with US casino brands, especially those centered around New Jersey, it launched Deal or No Deal Live and Monopoly Live.
These would soon come be known as live casino game show games, with the croupiers becoming more like hosts and the studio action more raucous and social.
They were instant hits, transforming players’ expectations of what casino games could be. Rivals like Playtech had their own spin on game shows, but Evolution’s games were usually more popular.
By the time the 2020s were upon us, Evolution started buying up rival game developers, notably powerhouses in the slots space like NetEnt and Big Time Gaming.
The former had dabbled in live casino software, so Evolution was eliminating a rival from the burgeoning live dealer scene. But the acquisitions also gave Evolution another bow in its quiver – intellectual property.
Games like NetEnt’s Gonzo’s Quest slot were smash hits globally, and Evolution was able to turn games like that into Live Dealer experiences.
Not Everything Has Been a Success
We should say that not all of Evolution’s moves have been successful. It did, at one point, experiment with hybrid forms of live casino gaming, setting up cameras in ‘real’ casinos, allowing players to place bets remotely.
It didn’t really take off, with logistics a major hurdle. But it remains an example of their push to innovate, transforming what is possible with online casino gaming.
The face of the online casino sector can change fairly quickly, so it remains to be seen whether Evolution’s dominance can continue over the coming years and decades, potentially revolutionizing peer-to-peer online poker as well.
One thing is certain: the company it is firmly ensconced in the live dealer space, and it will be buoyed by easing of regulations in individual US states, as well as emerging markets like South America.
