The UK Gambling Commission has revealed it recently considered suspending Evolution’s licence after finding that the online gaming provider’s live casino games were being offered on unlicensed websites.
The news comes the week after Evolution reached a regulatory settlement of £4.75m after the Commission’s 18-month review into the company’s black market activity.
That investigation had found that Evolution’s game content was available on six websites that offered content to UK consumers without a licence.
While Evolution originally acted quickly to block access for UK customers on the affected sites – having originally been informed in December 2024 – the Commission later found evidence of multiple breaches of licence conditions, including failure to maintain adequate anti-money laundering and customer due diligence controls in the UK.
And such failing were “serious enough for us to consider licence suspension” according to John Pierce, the Commission’s director of enforcement.
“This investigation exposed serious weaknesses in Evolution’s AML risk assessment and its oversight of risks within its supply chain,” said Pierce.
“Their AML assessment was outdated and failed to adequately consider the risk posed by unlicensed operators distributing their games, creating a significant gap between documented controls and their real-world effectiveness,” he explained.
Nevertheless, the swift response from Evolution was sufficient enough that a suspension was avoided. The supplier eventually introduced measures to ensure its games could no longer be provided via unlicensed operators, and also agreed to the aforementioned settlement.
In a recent earnings call, Evolution CEO Martin Carlesund stressed that the agreement would have no more effects on the company’s operations this year, reports iGaming Business.
“There are no changes in our way of doing things in the UK for a while, and we have no changes coming up,” Carlesund said.
