Evolution Gaming buys competitor Ezugi

Evolution Gaming, the largest live casino provider in the world, has been growing at a dizzying pace for years. Evolution's management is of the opinion that there is still room for improvement, because last night the company announced that it would be taking over Ezugi.

Evolution pays $ 12 million in cash for Ezugi. In addition, current Ezugi shareholders can still earn $ 6 million with one earn outscheme, depending on future results.

Ezugi was founded in 2012 and provides live games such as roulette and blackjack for various online casinos, including Unibet, LeoVegas and Golden Nugget. For this, Ezugi has its own studios in Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria and Colombia, but the company also offers live streams from land-based casinos in Malta, Belgium and Cambodia.

Ezugi is much smaller than Evolution. In total, the company only operates 70 gaming tables; it employs around 300 croupiers and dealers. Evolution Gaming has many hundreds of gaming tables and nearly 4000 employees on the payroll.

Evolution buys a B brand

The live casino games from Ezugi are more old-fashioned, less user-friendly and less licked than those from Evolution. Mr. Casino actually sees Ezugi as a B brand, a cheaper option for online casinos that don't feel like paying the top prize for the state-of-the-art Evolution Gaming services.

Apparently the founder of Ezugi, Kfir Kugler, also thinks Evolution is far ahead of its own company. In the press release accompanying the acquisition, Kugler says:

"Evolution's superior offering in areas such as streaming quality and speed, user experience, game choice and all-round operational excellence will help bring the service to the current Ezugi operators to the next level."

It seems that Evolution is doing the acquisition mainly to attract a new group of customers in one go. The CEO of Evolution, Martin Carlesund, explains:

"I am pleased about this agreement. It's a very logical next step for Evolution which will increase our market share in key existing markets, like the US, where Ezugi's presence and customer base will add to our on-going market expansion. "