Evolution Live in West Virginia + Pragmatic Play Live in Colombia

Evolution uses Pennsylvania Studio to supply West Virginia iGaming market + Pragmatic Play continues its aggressive LaTam expansion! (Photo by Pavel Danilyuk)

Two prestigious live dealer brands that often hit the headlines for spreading their wings across various iGaming markets, and of course, across the globe, are back at it again.

The latest headlines coming out of the Evolution Gaming camp at first glance looked as if the company had opened a fourth live dealer studio in the US, but in fact, the company is using one of its existing 3 US-based studios to deliver its live casino portfolio to online casinos on West Virginia’s bustling iGaming scene.

As for Pragmatic Play, the brand continues to stream its game titles across the globe from its Romanian-based live casino studio, and this time, its webcam feeds will travel across the Atlantic Ocean’s digital airwaves and fibre optic to deliver that authentic land-based casino gameplay experience to players in the Columbian iGaming market.

Evolution Live in West Virginia—state number 4 for Evolution

With studios already in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, when I first saw the headline stating Evolution is live in West Virginia, my first thought was ‘a fourth studio—wow’. However, that’s not the case, and for the size of Mountain State’s population, it might have been overkill for a new studio.

The state’s population is 3 million. Compared to New Jersey’s 9+ million, Pennsylvania’s 13+ million, and Michigan’s 10+ million populations, the operational costs of a West Virginia studio would have meant a small studio and a limited number of games in a small market. And with the state-by-state iGaming laws, software providers have to operate inside the state to deliver games to the online casinos. Usually, this is achieved via a tech partner.

However, we have seen poker get around this via its ‘Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement’, which includes Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and, more recently, Michigan. And it seems Evolution has managed to break down that barrier in the online casino sphere by striking a deal that will see its Pennsylvania studio supply online casinos in West Virginia with live casino game titles.

This is a huge deal for the studio itself because its population reach just jumped from serving a population of 13+ million to 16+ million if we add Pennsylvania and West Virginia’s populations together.

Players in West Virginia will gain access to the same live dealer game portfolio Pennsylvania players have been playing since the studio opened for business in 2020. Game titles that will be available include Live Blackjack, Infinite Blackjack, Ultimate Texas Hold’em, Three Card Poker and Live Roulette. West Virginia players will also have the luxury of playing the multi-award-winning Lightning Roulette title which won the EGR Operators Awards Game of the Year 2018, Product Innovation of the Year at Global Gaming Awards 2018 at the G2E Las Vegas, and the Innovation in Live Casino award at the SBC Awards 2018.

Jeff Millar, Commercial Director of North America at Evolution: He mentions in a quote in the official Evolution news release that Group brand NetEnt is already live in West Virginia. He is now delighted that players in West Virginia will now have access to its portfolio live dealer games. Players in the state can now play in real-time with real-life dealers. Mr Millar was extremely confident when mentioning that players will ‘absolutely love what they see’.