After a robust period of negotiation, casino software giant Evolution, the former Evolution Gaming, has acquired NetEnt. The takeover involves the gigantic sum of almost 2 billion euros.
The acquisition first had to be approved by the British competition authority, Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). When the CMA gave its approval, it happened pretty quickly.
No halfway, NetEnt Live closed immediately
The takeover is not really very gradual for the staff of NetEnt. Evolution has decided to close down NetEnt’s live casino branch, namely NetEnt Live, immediately. This means that because of the takeover 300 employees of NetEnt are sitting at home as of December 1. Such a thing seems completely unthinkable in the Netherlands, but in Malta people are simply sent home immediately.
As a result of the takeover, the village of Qormi, where almost all NetEnt Live employees live, is suddenly 300 more unemployed. A dram for the village. A spokesperson for Evolution Gaming confirmed that the studio will be closed down. It is expected that quite a few social problems will arise in the village. The government of Malta has opened a special phone number for the former employees who now have a very sour December.
It is not excluded that many more people will lose their jobs. Evolution is going to make a good clean sweep of the company. After the takeover there were some malfunctions in some NetEnt products, but these have now expired and everything is running again.
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Big changes for online casinos
A fair number of online casinos are going to be directly affected by Evolution’s acquisition. There are still quite a few online casinos that do not purchase products from Evolution. This is because the licenses of especially the live casino games are very expensive. These casinos have opted for the cheaper live games from NetEnt. With the closing of NetEnt Live, this means a blow to these casinos. Their live casino section sees a large number of games disappear overnight.
Evolution has the power
Evolution was already the biggest and frankly the best provider of live casino games. With top games like Lightning Roulette and especially the popular game shows Crazy Time and Monopoly Live they have stolen the hearts of online players in no time. The tricky thing for online casinos is that these games are very expensive to offer but it seems more and more that as a casino you can’t do without Evolution anymore.