The UK Gambling Commission has released an official statement regarding Evolution’s recent £4.75m settlement, identifying “serious weaknesses” in the game supplier’s AML oversight between December 2023-November 2024.
A review of Evolution’s UK licence was launched by the Commission in December 2024, following reports that its branded games were found on a number of unlicensed gambling websites unlawfully targeting British consumers.
The review concluded earlier this July after an 18-month period, with a £4.75m settlement to be paid by Evolution being agreed upon by both sides.
In between the one-year window noted above, the UK regulator found “large volumes of visits” by UK-based players to the unlicensed casinos, which were supplied with games by Evolution through a business relationship.
The Commission established that Evolution’s internal assessment procedures that detect money laundering and terrorist financing risks were not effective enough to flag down the infringements occurring at the time.
John Pierce, Commission Director of Enforcement, said: “This case exposed serious weaknesses in Evolution’s anti-money laundering risk assessment and its oversight of risks within its supply chain.
“The company’s AML risk assessment was outdated and failed to adequately consider the risk of its games being made available through unlicensed operators. As a result, there was a significant gap between the controls on paper and their effectiveness in practice.
“The Commission’s investigation and testing uncovered failings that were serious enough for us to consider licence suspension.”
Still, Pierce highlighted that Evolution acted in a timely manner to effectively address all the issues raised by the Commission and swiftly devised an action plan to remedy similar failings in the future.
Its full cooperation with the Commission has essentially saved the games supplier from losing its highly-valued UK licence.
“Evolution responded swiftly and comprehensively once these issues were identified, taking immediate action to strengthen its controls and address our concerns. Our subsequent testing has not identified any further instances of concern,” Pierce continued.
“However, this case provides an important lesson for the industry. Operators must ensure their risk assessments are current, regularly tested and reflective of real-world risks. They need to understand who they are supplying their games to, how and where those games are being accessed in practice, and maintain effective ongoing controls that give them confidence their products are not supporting illegal gambling.
“Operators should be under no illusion. We will continue to proactively monitor and test the market to identify licensed products being made available through illegal operators targeting consumers in Great Britain. Where we find failings, we will take decisive regulatory action.”
Evolution likely bracing for rough FY26 landing
In its Q2 financial report, Evolution reported a revenue increase of 2.4% on a constant currency basis, but a 1.2% drop in net revenue YoY to €517.8m (£440.8m) compared to Q2 2025.
The first half of this year saw the company generate €1.03bn in total revenue and €676.3m in EBITDA.
Q3 and H2 results, however, could be a whole different story, with two big payouts having the potential to negatively impact Evolution’s financials.
First is of course the £4.75m settlement discussed earlier. In addition, the company is also obliged to pay Galaxy Gaming a total of $5.2m (£3.9m) for withdrawing from an acquisition agreement that has been dragging on for almost two years.
Together, that is an £8.6m impact on the firm’s topline straight off the bat.
There’s also the ongoing legal battle with competitive games provider Playtech where court costs could easily add up into the millions.
And on top of this, there is the UK’s new tax regime to consider – a 40% rate on B2C iGaming operations to be exact.
This new regime, introduced in April 2026 under former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves’ November 2025 budget, is expected to have a knock on effect on the supply chain.
Games developers like Evolution could find themselves in this financial firing line as the tax burden weighs down on Britain’s online gaming sector.