BetMGM Live Studio by Evolution

A BetMGM owned studio is now open and will contract Evolution to operate the games while Playtech Live is also on its way to Ontario (Image from courtesy of casino.on.betmgm.ca)

A brand-new live dealer studio is open in Ontario via the BetMGM brand. The studio is owned by BetMGM and will be based in Europe streaming games via webcam to Canada’s largest province. The US brand has set up the project with Evolution, based in Malta, operating the tables.

When it comes to using Evolution’s dedicated live casino branding services, most online casinos will use an Evolution owned and operated studio, but in this case, BetMGM has decided to take on the expense of the studio and hire Evolution’s expert team to operate the venue in what looks like a turnkey style operation. Strictly speaking, it means Evolution is being contracted as the management team to hire dealers, croupiers, and game show hosts, and operate the technical aspects of the studio.

Evolution already powers several Ontario based casinos, including those using Rush Street Interactive as well as reputable live casinos such as 888casino, Penn International’s theScore and LeoVegas.

The live dealer brand also has a studio in Vancouver, more specifically the New Westminster area of British Columbia as well as those in Riga, Malta, Belgium, Tbilisi (Georgia), New Jersey (USA), Pennsylvania (USA), and Michigan (USA). Aside from the US-based studios, in theory, Ontario live casinos can connect to any of these studios.

Playtech Live Games Enter the Ontario Live Casino Market

After Playtech’s Quickspin slot development studio announced its entrance into the Ontario iGaming market, we have to say that we did wonder why Playtech wasn’t in the picture. We were also a little unsure how the rules worked when it came to live dealer studios, i.e., where the studios need to have a Canada location, but this has all been cleared up with the BetMGM/Evolution studio partnership and via a press release on the Playtech news portal, confirming it has multiple partnerships lined up to deliver its portfolio of RNG games, video slots and virtual tables, to Ontario licensed online casinos, and in the same PR statement supply of ‘Live’ casino games was also mentioned.

One of the downsides to the Ontario iGaming market up until now is one that the US iGaming markets similarly face. A lack of variety in the live casino vertical when it comes to a choice of brands. Although young, since the Ontario iGaming launched, live casino fans have had only one brand to choose from. That being said, players can have a little complaint because it happens to be arguably the best live dealer platform provider in its niche – Evolution.

The new addition of Playtech live games will add some healthy competition to the market, and we could be seeing plenty more live dealer brands announcing their arrival in the near future.

Live casino market is growing: Over the past 2 years we have seen several new live casino platform brands enter the iGaming arena. Some of them are already established companies moving into the niche like Swintt, Stakelogic and EGT, while there are also new brand names appearing. Check out our recent report covering over 30 live casino brand names now operating in the live dealer iGaming vertical.

Why have the Ontario iGaming Market News Headlines Gone Quiet?

The new Ontario iGaming market was filling up the iGaming newswires in March and, for the first few days of April, things have gotten rather quiet since its launch. That’s not because the market isn’t a success, as it’s far too early for official figures to start rolling in.

Think of it as Christmas and New Year to put a finer point in it. All the hype builds up early on, and then it’s all over in a blink of an eye – in Ontario, the market is open and seemingly running smoothly. It goes against the grain in some ways thanks to the old saying ‘no news is good news. However, the casinos are open, the software providers and tech are delivering, and as the brands involved are major players in the global online gambling space, they are no strangers to launching brand new fully operational betting and casino platforms that work from the get-go.

Most of the original news reports were down to the mad rush of a mass of brands registering as Ontario iGaming companies, picking up licensing, and then making B2B partnership deals with major software providers, while the software providers themselves were in the process of picking up their Certificate of Registration (Supplier) from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) to gain the necessary iGaming Ontario (iGO) supplier licenses giving them the ability to deliver their game portfolios to online casinos also licensed in the Canadian province.

For those of you outside of Ontario, or for those that not happy with the current games libraries available, or you simply prefer to play a wider selection of games from casinos using MGA and Curacao licensing, you can check out online live casino reviews Canada here complete with bonus lists.

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