Notes from Evolution's ICE 2025

Conversations with Evolution's management and a few observations

I attended my first International Casinos Exhibition in Barcelona last week. Although no single event can possibly represent the complete picture of such a fragmented and opaque industry as global iGaming, I suspect that this was the closest thing to it.

Unlike the previous two years, Evolution did not reveal a “biggest production ever” type of game this year. (Check out Todd’s comments below on when to expect the next big game!)

Evolution had the ultimate product display of the exhibition

As always, Twitter offers a great overview of the product releases. Speaking of which, I am grateful to FlössösMadrid for being a great companion in many company visits during the exhibition.

Industry Observations

As a fan of informed oversimplifications, I like to mentally group Live Casino suppliers into four:

1. Product Leader: Evolution

2. Aggressive Marketer: Pragmatic Gaming

3. Legacy Networkers: Playtech, Light & Wonder, Aristocrat

4. Also-rans: Everyone else

It was revealing how their differing strategies were also reflected in their stands:

1. Evolution’s stand was almost completely dedicated to introducing their games, with a relatively small private meeting area. On the acquired products side, the company didn’t showcase land-based DigiWheel products like the last year but had a Livespins streamer’s booth instead.

2. Pragmatic had the hands-down best marketing where one could physically go through their latest (Crazy Time “inspired”) game show, play games to win various prizes, ride a motorcycle simulator and virtually design a dedicated live dealer studio.

3. Playtech had close to no iGaming products on display aside from a single screen and dedicated all of its stand to meeting areas. Aristocrat went one step beyond and made its stand appointment-only. Seemingly foolish at first glance, these choices actually fit the companies’ strategy of focusing on exclusive relationships with select operators in regulated markets. Interestingly, Light & Wonder chose to locate its stand not in the iGaming but in the land-based suppliers hall, which signals where their ambitions still lie.

4. A year-to-year changing set of hopeful Live Casino suppliers dotted the show floor. I couldn’t spot some suppliers which I was hoping to see and found many that I didn’t even know existed. The standard (and arguably the only viable) strategy for smaller scale suppliers seems to be to build a portfolio of traditional live dealer tables and then showcase game show prototypes as their upcoming line-up. On the one hand, most of the promoted games and interfaces were quite nice-looking, a significant step-up from the games I used to look up just a few years ago. On the other, the demo displays of most suppliers I tried showed significant video streaming hiccups. The needed investment and expertise to reach the base level of quality in security, video feed and studio management that is expected by players still seems out-of-reach for most suppliers. Furthermore, the disappointing growth of last year seems to have hit the outlook of these smaller-scale suppliers, too. One medium-sized supplier who boasted 250 tables and ambitious international expansion plans last year updated me this year with only 200 tables and a halted expansion.

Conversations with Evolution’s Management

You can find the main points from my imperfect recollections of my conversations with the management below.

CEO Carlesund

• Our competitors focus on relationships and are busy wining and dining their prospective customers. Instead, we relentlessly focus on our products and you can see it in our stand. In the end, it all comes down to what the players prefer. The rest tends to fall into place from there.

• We have executed very well on the product side. But, there are many things to improve in promotions/marketing to the players.

• We are expanding studio capacity everywhere simultaneously.

• We currently don’t do it but have the capacity to stream even from the US studios internationally. The higher wages wouldn’t matter if the incremental user is coming at no extra cost.

• Philippines is a test case for Asian regulated market openings. Locally, there are a lot of moral connotations around gambling that affect the politics around it. We are progressing extra carefully.

• The Philippines studio is meant only for the local market at the moment.

CFO Kaplan

• Decision to leave the company came due to personal wish to take a break from years of intense quarterly pace.

• Evolution reports regulated vs. unregulated segments purely based on the player location that Evolution guesses from its video stream. If Evolution generates revenue from a player located in a regulated country via an operator without a license in that market, it still counts towards regulated market revenue in its reporting.

• Asia cyber-attackers stole Evolution’s video feed and put their own betting systems on it. Attacks didn’t generate revenue for Evolution. Counteracting the attacks by putting too many restrictions risks blocking legitimate customers.

• Don’t expect severe consequences from the Swedish financial regulator investigation.

• IP Blocking: In the US, operators are responsible for geo-fencing by IP blocking. Evolution can apply IP-blocking by blocking whole markets and then whitelisting only locally licensed operators. Evolution will do this if European regulators require.

CPO Haushalter

Probably due his relatively clear area with little compliance risk, Todd Haushalter (along with the North America CEO Jacob Claesson who was unfortunately not present) remains the Evolution executive who most openly shares their insights. As in our previous meeting, Todd was very generous with his time and feedback.

Biggest Game Ever

Ali: This year’s game releases seem more incremental compared to the previous two years. Has Evolution reached the limit of its ever increasing scale of big games?

Todd: We are currently developing our biggest game yet. We are planning to release it next year. It will have a light-hearted theme like Crazy Time and mass appeal.

Crazy Time Opportunities

Ali: I feel like Evolution holds a golden ticket with Crazy Time in the US. It is Evolution’s biggest hit even after many years, and it should present a huge opportunity in the US market. Am I being too optimistic?

Todd: Obviously, opening a new Crazy Time in every state is a hassle, but we have great initial results.

Ali: Is Crazy Time’s international success transferable to the US?

Todd: It is certainly possible. As an example, Lightening Roulette is already very popular in the US, partly surpassing our regular roulette.

Ali: Here’s my pitch: Why not invest in creating a top-notch (and possibly long-term) presenter team for the Crazy Time in one of the US states, and then stream internationally from there? In addition to their native language advantage, Americans tend to make great entertainers.

Todd: It is an interesting idea. Either way, it will need some time. If you compare today, our Latvia-based presenters are performing very well, and our US presenters are still to catch them. In a similar vein, we even consider celebrity appearances in our games. Theoretically, if Taylor Swift visits us and turns the wheel in Crazy Time, we probably couldn’t handle the demand in our network.

Ali: Sounds like a good problem to have.

Todd: True.

Ali: It is funny that Crazy Time’s official copy, Crazy Time A, is also on the top-5 game charts. Why is there a Crazy Time A?

Todd: Yes, I find it funny, too. We initially released it to de-risk our operators (due to possible win concentrations). Additionally, Crazy Time is too important for us. If our Latvian game goes offline for any reason, we wanted to make sure that we could continue offering the game from Romania. Having multiple variants also lets players play multiple wheels simultaneously.

Virtual Sports

Ali: For your newly released Race Track Live, have you considered giving the horses distinct names and looks that players could maybe grow attached to?

Todd: We have actually already implemented this in the game. The horses even have their own characters and running styles. We have left it to players to recognize them.

Ali: How about making the graphics 3D photo-realistic instead of 16-bit and maybe present the races like realistic TV segments?

Todd: Quickness of each round makes such a presentation a little unpractical for the player to follow.

Ali: How about applying such an idea to football or basketball?

Todd: I have seen similar ideas tried by suppliers. We need to check with operators for possible demand and also check the performance of Race Track and a few other sports-themed games of ours.

Two Risque Ideas

Ali: I am going to pitch two ideas that may be a little too aggressive.

Todd: Let’s hear them.

Ali: I have noticed that last year’s big Lightning Storm release had slightly darker and more adult feel and theme than your usual games.

Todd: That’s true.

Ali: Will we ever see an Evolution game show based on Nolimit City IP or styled similarly?

Todd: I wouldn’t mind seeing the Live game version of Nolimit’s Mental or Tombstone.

Ali: My second idea actually originates from a scandal that you may be aware of: The Counter-Strike skin gambling. Would Evolution ever run a game where the payouts are digital goods rather than money? For example, Valve (Counter-Strike’s developer) could welcome a solution where all gambling happens in a clearly regulated and safeguarded venue.

Todd: We could be open to such ideas. However, Evolution will never do B2C. So, we would need partnership from the holder and operator of the IP. For example, we would need a call from Take-Two if they want to have an official GTA casino tie-in. Obviously, we would also need to figure out how to calculate the betting value to calculate Evolution’s take-rate from.

Multiple Presenters

Ali: Have you considered having multiple presenters interacting with each other in a game?

Todd: We are open to that idea and occasionally consider how to apply it. We encourage our presenters to hang out and chat with each other during shift handovers. We also did Blackjack Party. We also do virtual crossovers between our game franchises. There have been occasions Gonzo or the Monopoly Man visits the Crazy Time.

Ali: Would margins be an issue in having multiple presenters?

Todd: No. Per month, a game show may generate $10-20 million in GGR, of which $1-2 million comes to Evolution. For this, we may be paying monthly running costs of $25,000. Doubling that cost would not be an issue.

Avatar Baccarat

FlössösMadrid: Last year, you announced Avatar Baccarat where a 3D character is overlaid on a live dealer. Why haven’t you released it yet?

Todd: We are having difficulty with hands. Cards can occasionally disappear and reappear while being handled by the dealer.

Land-based Products

Ali: What can DigiWheel and Evolution do to get more traction in land-based casinos?

Todd: Large-sized land-based suppliers are copying our products. You may have noticed that we have recently sued Light & Wonder for taking our product and copying it in a land-based product. It may make sense for us to partner with a medium-sized land-based supplier.

Ali: In land-based products, does Evolution’s bigger opportunity lie in recreating a local instance of an Evolution game (a self-contained game setup) or in streaming games from Evolution’s studios into a cabinet?

Todd: In a local instance.

Game Show Rights

Ali: BetMGM has recently purchased the rights to “Family Feud” and “The Price is Right”.

Todd: That deal has come before us and we have passed on them.

Ali: I can’t imagine BetMGM to run a Live Casino game show internally. So, my question is: Would Evolution ever create and run a custom game show exclusively for a big operator?

Todd: No, we would not.

International Game Development

Ali: Would you consider having a game development team in the Philippines for Asia-specific games?

Todd: I don’t think we need it. We constantly scour the world for locally popular games and see if we can develop on them. For example, we have developed and are releasing the Super Color Game specifically with the Philippines market in mind.

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[2025-01-28] EDIT: added the International Game Development discussion with Todd

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