Online casino operators have a familiar problem: the games that built the industry are also the games consumers already know. The challenge is finding ways to make those formats feel new without making them unrecognisable. Evolution provides a useful example of how suppliers are responding to that challenge.
Evolution’s results for 2025 would pass without comment at most companies. Net revenue was €2,066.5 million, up 0.2% on the previous year, and the adjusted EBITDA margin eased from 68.4% to 66.1%. The margin was still 66.1%, but this is a Stockholm-listed supplier that grew revenue by almost 15% in 2024, making the flat year notable.
Among the 113 games it released that year were Ice Fishing, which the annual report calls Evolution’s first “speed game show”, and Red Baron, a crash game in which a multiplier climbs until the round ends. In the company’s report for the second quarter of 2026, the chief executive singled out “strong development in the game show category and continued demand for native-speaking tables” in Europe.
New formats, new customers?
On H2 Gambling Capital figures cited in Evolution’s annual report, live casinos made up 29% of the online casino market in 2025. Studio game shows also demonstrate how familiar entertainment formats can be adapted to the fit the model for online casino games, potentially making new formats easier for audiences to understand.
British data is a useful check on how far that can go. The Gambling Commission’s industry statistics for the year to March 2026 put remote casino gross gambling yield at £5.7 billion, with slots accounting for £4.8 billion, roulette £395 million and blackjack £224 million. The Commission doesn’t separate live dealer play from software versions of the same games. Even so, every table game and game show in the British market is competing for roughly £0.9 billion, about one pound in six. The wider market is still growing: total British gambling yield rose 4.4% to £17.5 billion over the year, and the remote sector grew faster, by 6.9% to £8.3 billion.
Growth by language
Regulated markets supplied 49% of Evolution’s second-quarter revenue, or €256.1 million, and Latin America grew 26.3% on the year against 9.5% in North America, where online casinos are legal in only a handful of states. Each of those markets needs native-speaking tables, with dealers working shifts that match local evenings. Europe returned to quarter-on-quarter growth of 3.5% in the period, but the chief executive was still “cautious about the low channelization rates” there, meaning the share of play that stays with licensed operators rather than drifting to unlicensed sites.
What retention is paying for
For operators, the attraction is the possibility of getting more activity from the same customer. Someone who bets on football, plays blackjack and occasionally watches a game show gives an operator more opportunities to generate activity than someone who uses only one product.
It’s hard to test from the outside. Operators don’t usually break out retention by product, so the most useful public evidence is still the supplier’s revenue line. Game shows remain a relatively small part of the supplier’s overall revenue picture, despite the emphasis placed on the category in recent product development. The next reading comes with Evolution’s third-quarter numbers.
