"Evolution had a fantastic reaction from operators”

You presented Evolution Gaming's growing Live Casino offering at ICE. How did operators react?
We had a fantastic reaction from operators, with existing licensees and numerous potential clients all visiting the Evolution stand to catch up with the latest developments in Live Casino.

There was a huge amount of interest, not least because there were so many new Evolution Live Casino developments to see and discuss. Over the past 12 months we have extended our mobile Live Casino offering, launched new Live Casino products such as Live Three Card Poker, in partnership with SHFL, and also developed and released Immersive Roulette, the world’s most advanced online Live Roulette game.

We have also introduced exciting functionality such as Multi-Game Play across all our live games. This not only enables up to four live games to be played simultaneously in a single auto-configuring window, it also allows operators to introduce focused attractions such as Quattro Roulette and Quattro Blackjack.To coincide with ICE we released statistics that demonstrated in broad terms the very positive results achieved by Evolution licensees who have introduced Multi-Game Play. Players who have tried Multi-Game Play (MGP) are wagering twice as much as they did before they used it. In particular, there has been rapid adoption of MGP amongst VIP players.As you can imagine, that created quite a talking point on the stand.

Additionally we focused on Business Intelligence in general, and the way in which we work hand in hand with our clients to analyse their results. With the data and analysis we have availablewe can work closely with client’s internal teams to drive both their acquisition and retention strategies – all of which contribute to incremental revenue.

As well as catching up with our growing list of existing licensees it was also an opportunity to finalise agreements with new clients. As announced just after the show, Danske Licens Spil will go live with Danish native speaking dealers in their own dedicated environment, to be hosted in our new Malta studio, in the coming months. There were other deals, too, but we’ll have more news on those in the next few weeks.

What is the market for your iOS and Android mobile offering in Europe? What are operators and players demanding?
Players want to be able to access their favourite games whenever and wherever they are, to fit in with their lifestyles. This is what our mobile Live Casino offering allows them to do, with access to virtually all of our tables via their device of choice, rather than just a mobile-specific offering that offers access to a limited number of tables.

It’s our belief – and our data analysis confirms this – that the mobile Live Casino market in Europe should not be viewed as a separate market but as part of an overall multi-channel market. Players want to be able to access their favourite tables, on their device of choice, at different points in their day. That might mean playing on an iPhone or smartphone while commuting at the end of day, then playing again on a desktop computer or laptop later in the evening while sat a desk, then checking back at the tables on their tablet a little later with their feet up on the sofa.

We believe the most successful Live Casino operators will offer a complete experience, the widest choice and also consistency of UI and player experience across all devices. That’s what they get with Evolution.

In terms of the commercial market for our offering within Europe, there is huge scope with mobile for operators to achieve incremental growth in their Live Casino revenues. Our mobile product is continuing to grow and, despite some initial concerns voiced by operators who were unsure whether to make the mobile commitment, we are not seeing cannibalisation of revenues. Instead, we are seeing the reverse: extended play times and extended player value.

ICE was also an excuse to promote the opening of your new studio in Malta. How does this add to your gaming offer?
As highlighted prior to ICE, the Evolution Malta studio is our second central studio and the new home for our international team of native speaking dealers. The new Malta studio will allow us to further extend the number of native speaking tables we can offer to all our licensees, as well as those that we operate exclusively on behalf of specific licensees.

At the same time, transferring our native speaking tables to Malta has freed up space at our Riga studio. That space is now being used to meet the continuing high demand from existing and new licensees for our dedicated Live Casino environments.

All of our native speaking tables opened as planned at the Malta studio at the end of January, with additional tables scheduled to open in the coming months.
I should also mention that this expansion in operations includes significant investment that will further enhance the disaster recovery, business continuity and security services enjoyed by Evolution licensees at all of our studios. These studios include not only our central studios in Riga and Malta but also our Spanish Roulette studio in Murcia, Spain.

As a company, Evolution has been very successful in re-regulated markets. Do you see this pattern continuing?
Yes, helping our licensees to capitalise on the opportunities presented by ‘new’ markets is central to our strategy. As a company we are always alive to every opportunity. Indeed, that was the theme of our stand at ICE.

The Dutch market is finalising new legislation ready for its 2015 opening. That is sure to be a key market for Evolution, and we will look to be first to market in that new jurisdiction just as we have been in Italy, Denmark, Spain and Belgium. This pattern can continue because of the close, collaborative, iterative working relationship we have – not only with operators but also with regulators. This allows us to launch very quickly following the finalisation of regulations. To quote just one example, we achieved this to great effect for our licensees in Italy. Evolution licensees were live and gaining market share while many of their competitors had to wait months for certification.

We are also looking at other opportunities in markets such as Greece, and several other territories too. Then, of course, there is the US market where we are the first (and only to date)Live Casino provider to gain Preliminary Waiver approval for New Jersey.

What are your plans for the coming months?
The next few months will see the continuing roll-out and enhancement of our mobile Live Casino offering. This will include roll-out to additional mobile devices and also additional games rolled out to iPhone and other smartphones.
In addition, as part of the continual evolution of our products, we will be releasing an enhanced version of our user interface for mobile.
There will be additional product releases, too, and, as mentioned earlier, new licensees will be announced. Right now I cannot say more than that, but we will be sure to share news of these developments with you just as soon as we can.