Live dealer casino specialists Evolution Gaming are the gift that keeps on giving, at least, in terms of its shareholders.
On Thursday, the Stockholm-listed Evolution turned in its Q1 financial report card, which showed revenue rising 54% year-on-year to €79.3m. Earnings were up 64% to €35.9m as margins improved by nearly three points to an obscene 45.3% while profit spiked 73% to nearly €28.6m.
Evolution explained its boffo performance by saying it was the result of “good leverage from investments made in 2018,” as well as the rollout of new games and the launch of live casino operations for a number of new customers, including DraftKings, Loto-Quebec and Sweden’s state-owned Svenska Spel and ATG.
Evolution’s expanding operations in North America – with studios in New Jersey and British Columbia – caused a shift in the company’s geographic revenue split. The ‘Rest of World’s share over the overall revenue pie was up seven points from Q1 2018 to 29%, while the UK’s share dipped four points to 13%, the Rest of Europe slipped three points to 49% and the Nordics held firm at 9%.
Evolution showcased 10 new games at February’s ICE confab in London, and while most of the new products are still being rolled out and thus didn’t impact the Q1 results, Evolution CEO Martin Carlesund singled out the new MONOPOLY Live game as one to watch.
Carlesund said MONOPOLY Live – a mix of Live Casino and RNG with augmented reality technology that evolved out of Evolution’s Dream Catcher money wheel – has gotten off to “a historically strong start both in terms of player counts and gaming revenues” since its April 11 debut. MONOPOLY Live was created via sublicense from Scientific Games in partnership with Hasbro Inc.
Carlesund said new products like MONOPOLY Live “appeal to completely new end users,” a benefit that Carlesund claims will allow Evolution to “address a considerably larger part of the total online casino market” and to continue to poach market share from rivals.
