Fresh from paying a £4.75 million fine for allowing its games to be played on illegal websites, B2B iGaming heavy-hitters Evolution have reported a disappointing 1.2 percent, year-on-year, decline in their second-quarter revenue.
Putting a spin on the erratic state-of-fiscal-play, Evolution CEO Martin Carlesund conceded: “The road is almost never straight. Some curves are harder than others.
“But what matters is that we are moving forward.”
The Swedish-origin studio and iCasino hitmaker, one of the biggest games developers in world gambling, was this week sanctioned £4.75 million (US$6.38m) by the UK’s regulatory Gambling Commission (UKGC) for allowing two unlicensed operators to run its games across six illicit sites.
Playtech Dispute
To its credit Evolution, founded around a Stockholm kitchen table in 2006 by Jens von Bahr and Fredrik Österberg, fessed up to the breach, first detected by the UKGC in December 2024.
But the company–the largest iCasino operator in Europe, with extensive operations in North America and Asia–is still locked in a titanic legal dispute with its arch rivals Playtech in a New Jersey courtroom over an alleged dirty tricks campaign by Black Cube, a unit run by former Israeli intelligence officers.
For the first six months of 2026, Evolution’s net revenue declined 1.4 percent to €1.03 billion (£870m), y-o-y.
EBITDA for the first half totalled €676.3 million (£575.47m), margins remaining broadly stable at 65.6 percent – compared with 65.8 percent a year earlier.
Carlesund Contented
For its Q2, ending June 30, EBITDA totalled €341 million (£290.18m), down €4.3 million (£3.65m), compared to the same period in 2025.
Profit for the period, Evolution reported, increased to €251.4 million (£213.91m) from €248.3 million (£211.27m), while earnings-per-share rose to €1.27 from €1.22.
“Overall, I am happy with the performance in the quarter,” commented Carlesund.
“Following several quarters of decline, Europe returned to quarter-on-quarter growth of 3.5 percent.
“We remain cautious about the low channelization rates, but the quarter otherwise showed encouraging activity in several markets, with strong development in the game show category and continued demand for native-speaking tables.
“Latin America maintained its positive momentum and delivered solid year-on-year growth of 26.3 percent.
“Among recent events, we have re-launched the newly acquired studio in Argentina and brought a localised version of Ice Fishing to the Brazilian market.
“North America continued its steady growth pace, with year-on-year growth of 9.5 percent.
“During the quarter, Monopoly Live was launched in four states, and we opened our second studio in Michigan. In July, we expanded our presence in Alberta, Canada, following its transformation to a regulated commercial online gaming market.
“Asia was the exception to the otherwise positive progress, with a quarter-on-quarter decline of 3.7 percent.
Volatile Markets
But Carlesund also warned about “volatile” markets.
“Asia [also] remains volatile as earlier stated, and increased cybercrime activity could not be fully offset by otherwise relatively favourable development. The volatility is something we continue to work through.
“Other markets, which mainly comprise Africa, also showed some volatility, but with a clear positive underlying development reflected in quarter-on-quarter growth of 14.2 percent.
“We have a strong position in Live and are also seeing increasing activity in RNG.”
“I look forward to the remainder of the year.”
Markets, however, remain unmoved by Carlesund’s bravura, with Evolution shares marginally down–not up–to around SEK687 on the Stockholm Nasdaq today.
