Gambling

One of the most recognisable and wealthy providers of casino games, Evolution Gaming, just acquired another gaming software provider – Nolimit City – for the staggering amount of $340 million.

We will tell you more about each company and about the deal itself, so you get a perspective on why it’s significant for the online gambling industry.

Nolimit City

Nolimit City is a company providing gaming software to online casinos. Nolimit City was founded by Jonas Tegman in Stockholm, Sweden on 1 January, 2014, but its staff has been working in the online gambling industry for a while, so they had the necessary experience and expertise to create an innovative and profitable company.

Nolimit City specialises in the creation of online slot machines, having never made another type of casino game (e.g., table games or live games). However, rather than pump new titles every year, the company chooses quality over quantity to deliver games with creative mechanics that are fun to play.

Nolimit City’s slot games instantly caught the attention of online casinos and players alike, with the company gradually expanding over the years. Nolimit City quickly mesmerised the European market and received licenses in its native Sweden, as well as in Malta, the United Kingdom, Italy, Lithuania, Denmark, Portugal, and Romania.

Not only that, but the company also received a warm welcome in the Asian gambling market. Now, it even has an office in Gurugram, India, bringing up the number of active offices to three (including offices in Sweden and Malta).

Nolimit City has two regulators, the Malta Gaming Authority and the United Kingdom Gambling Commission, which ensure the safety and legitimacy of the slots.

Evolution Gaming

Evolution Gaming Limited, or Evolution for short, was founded by Jens von Bahr (who remains the CEO of the company) in Riga, Latvia in 2006. Despite being founded in Riga, Evolution had a mostly Swedish staff, starting with its founder von Bahr. Evolution’s history is nothing short of a fantastic story of success.

Since its very inception, Evolution has strived to revolutionise online gambling by not only providing top-notch casino software, but by disrupting the status quo to give their customers the best and most immersive online gambling experience.

Undoubtedly, the biggest achievement of the company, and the reason for its following success, was the introduction of live dealer games. It’s important to note that Evolution didn’t invent the concept; various operators have tried to create such games in the past, but they simply lacked the necessary technology.

Evolution, on the other hand, offered reliable and safe software that could support live dealer games. The company continued to expand their live game titles, having released Live Blackjack, Live Baccarat, and various poker games in the span of 10 years.

In the following years since the introduction of live dealer games, Evolution has opened offices and studios in Sweden, Romania, Estonia, the Netherlands, Malta, Georgia, Belarus, Lithuania and counting. The game giant also expanded to North America (the US and Canada). Between 2013 and 2017, Evolution opened a new studio every year!

Evolution now serves over 500 online casinos and it continues to add new titles to its already long list of available games. The company’s net worth is $20.24 billion (as of June 2022), raking over $1 billion in profit every year.

Nolimit City – Evolution Deal

Nolimit City was formally acquired by Evolution Gaming on 22 June, 2022 for the sum of $340 million in cash, with $200 million being paid upfront. The deal was, paradoxically, both expected and not.

Nolimit City was profitable on its own, but it’s hard to say no to such a high amount. At the same time, Evolution have been buying successful software companies for some time; Evolution acquired the slot-giant NetEnt for $2.1 billion in 2020, followed by Big Time Gaming for €220 million in 2021.

Thus, it didn’t exactly come as surprise when Evolution shared its plans to buy Nolimit city. Evolution stays true to its promise of becoming the biggest provider of casino software in the world and the fastest way to achieve that goal is by acquiring other software providers with impressive resumes.

Jens von Bahr (Evolution’s founder and CEO) and Jonas Tegman (founder of Nolimit City) stated that the acquisition would positively impact both companies. The two founders spoke of the shared goal of innovation and reliability, which drives their companies forward.

Von Bahr was impressed with Nolimit City’s slot mechanics, while Tegman noted that Evolution was the perfect match for his company and that together they could reach new milestones in the online slot industry. For now, Nolimit City is expected to keep its staff and offices, because Evolution truly respects the company’s work ethic and genius.

The acquisition is finalised on paper, but it’s pending regulatory reviews.

This may surprise you, but I actually do read the messages you guys send me by clicking that pink “Contact” button at the top of the page! It’s true! Of course, this isn’t exactly hard to do considering the fact that I don’t exactly get a billion messages per day, but it always warms my heart to log into WordPress and spot the tiny messages icon bleeping in the corner, so… I guess what I’m trying to say is keep those messages coming, you guys! They really help me figure out what works and what doesn’t for the blog! But anyway, I digress. The reason why I’m even bringing this up in the first place is because a lot of you have messaged me asking about high rolling, and high rolling blackjack in particular. So let’s do it! Let’s talk about high rolling!

Now, what is high rolling, exactly? According to the official Merriam-Webster dictionary, a high roller is “a person who gambles large amounts of money”, and honestly, that about sums it up! While most people like to bet £5-10 at a time, high rollers often bet 10 or even 100 times that amount, ever time! The big question is, of course, “Why would they do something like that? Wouldn’t their fun last a lot longer if they saved up their money and played it small?” And generally yes, it would, but high rollers don’t play the way we tend to play. Most of us like to play for fun and not for profit. If we deposit £20 into an online casino, play for an hour or two every day, and a month later all of that money is just completely gone with nothing left, most of us don’t say “Oh, shoot, guess I wasted my money”, we just go “Well, that was fun! Let’s do it again sometime!” A lot of us tend to view online casino as entertainment rather than a business.

That’s not at all true for high rollers, though. They see this as an investment. When they bet £200 on blackjack, they intend to make their money back. It’s easy to imagine high rollers as spoiled rich brats that just waste their fortunes on mindless games, but that perception couldn’t be further from the truth. Like I said, high rolling is a business and there’s plenty of venues online that aim to support that business, many of which with limits sometimes higher than in Las Vegas specifically to accommodate high rollers. That’s by far the biggest pro of high rolling – just like any business, if you’ve got a large initial investment and know how to use it, you can actually increase it by high rolling. The biggest con is that, as you may have figured out, it’s very much a “high risk high reward” kind of system. If you bet £500 on your next blackjack hand, you might end up leaving with £1000 just a few seconds later… Or you could end up with nothing. It’s easy to swallow a £2-3 loss – hell, that’s how much a visit to Starbucks costs! It’s much more difficult to deal with the loss of what the average Brit pays for rent.

If you’re wondering whether or not you’re a high roller, chances are you’re not one. High rolling is a very, very exclusive club, and with good reason – only the 1% of the 1% can indulge in it. I mean, really, ask yourself this question – if right now you lost £1000, just like that, boom, they’re gone, how would that affect you? Would it create any significant problems at all? Would it hurt your savings? Would it make it difficult to pay rent and bills? Would it create trouble with your family? If so, don’t do it. But if you genuinely can’t think of any consequences to losing a sum like that… Well, then maybe you should give high rolling a shot after all?

Well it comes pretty timely with the International Women’s day that has just passed that the chief development officer of NetEnt – Asa Bredin – have been rated by the renowned Swedish Financial magazine Veckans Affarer the 7th most powerful woman in the country’s digital space.

Asa joined the company recently after being recruited from King. Ms. Bredin commented the event: “To achieve success within game development requires both creativity and a disciplined process. My role is to create conditions for our teams to succeed. I’m very proud and happy for the recognition!”

The CEO of the NetEnt, Per Eriksson, commented as well “It is good thing that strong and intelligent women are emphasized, as the need for more role models in the technology sector that can inspire other women is increasing. At NetEnt we’re confident that broadening the competence pool, at all levels, is the winning concept. We have set a goal to achieve a 50/50 gender balance by the year 2020. It is clear to us that gender balance and diversity delivers better results and increases innovation among employees.”

NetEnt are one of the few tech companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange that has already a 50/50 balanced management team. Recently (last week) they revealed that the company has been officially admitted to the WLA – World Lottery Association. The group of companies is committed to safe and responsible gaming.

The accomplishment of Asa Bredin as an event is extremely positive for women in the industry and companies such as NetEnt that act responsibly in order to establish and maintain gender equality in the gaming sector should not be left unnoticed. Only 22 per cent of people working in the industry are women, according to research published by the International Game Developers Association last year. At the same time the number of women playing games online is almost equal to men (data from the Entertainment Software Association stats). Girls as a rule a discouraged in pursuing careers in the tech sector. Sadly, stereotypes that engineering and math “are not for women” still live.

Elizabeth Sampat, a game designer at PopCap, one of the most successful game studios in the world, recently shared her struggles with an ethical dilemma. “I will no longer participate in encouraging young women and girls to become game industry professionals,” she wrote in a Facebook post that went viral “I will continue to fight tooth and nail for every woman who is currently here. But until the industry and gaming culture improves, it’s unethical.”

Elizabeth is by far not alone. Brianna Wu, who was at the center of the so called computer war on women – Gamergate summed it up nicely in a recent article published in The Guardian “ … we make games. They make internet comments. Who really has the power?”. And she’s right. So, let’s focus and get on with our lives fellow gamers and let the dogs bark.

Microgaming are among some of the very best online casino games providers in the UK, having earned their rightful spot atop Mt. Olympus right alongside the likes of PlayTech and NetEnt. They supply a pretty good number of casinos with games such as Mega Moolah and Thunderstruck, alongside about 800 others. They were the provider behind the very first online casino in 1994 and set a record in 2009 for the biggest jackpot paid out by an online slot (at about £4.69m), though I believe that this record was broken in 2013. Suffice to say, they’ve left their mark on the industry and continue to be influential to this very day. As such, I have decided to celebrate Microgaming’s contributions to the iGaming industry in the only way I know how – with an article! I spent quite a lot of time wondering exactly what article to write. Top 10 Microgaming slots? Nah, that doesn’t seem quite right – everybody has done that, I won’t have too much to say, and I don’t really play slots all that much anymore. Top 5 Microgaming moments? That’s interesting, but you can read about most of those on their official website, so what’s the point of me repeating them? I mean, it’s not like I can provide my own unique opinion on them or anything like that. And then it hit me. Top 3 Microgaming Casinos!

It was the perfect topic – I’d be able to provide people with more information about casinos they may or may not have heard of, and I’d be able to examine them in my own way. After all, I know that there’s a lot of people who are thinking about switching casinos (maybe the payout isn’t that good, or the bonuses aren’t that enticing after the welcome one, etc), but don’t necessarily want to abandon their favourite games, so finding another casino that’s more suitable for them, but has the same (or at least most of the same) games as the previous one might be their best option. That’s what I’m here for – I’m going to run you through my 3 favourite Microgaming casinos, explaining what I like about them and what makes them unique. Obviously, I’m not going to be focusing on the games (because they tend to be very similar) – instead I’ll try to cover stuff like bonuses, interface, that sort of thing. Also keep in mind that I’m not a reviewer, and this list should not be considered a review, but rather, an opinion piece. If you’d like a more professional review of some of the sites I’ve mentioned, you should take a look at this page with Microgaming casinos reviewed by casinoroulette.co.uk. With that said, let’s dive right into it!

32 Red

32 Red is a very, very weird site. Right from its front page you’ll be greeted by a wise-looking old Chinese man who invites you to claim your winnings, showing you images of people in complete ecstasy over, supposedly, having won the big jackpot, or whatever. It’s very much unlike what you’d typically find in an online casino, most of which are very professional-looking and attempt to emulate the best high-rollers casinos of Las Vegas in their utter elegance and formality. 32 Red, on the other hand, doesn’t have the illusion of being such a stuck-up casino – instead, its creator has willingly embraced the eccentricity of the whole concept of an online casino and has chosen to run with it. I mean, when you think about it, a bunch of people sitting around in their homes and clicking buttons almost randomly in the hopes of winning money is kind of crazy, isn’t it? While the other casinos say “No”, 32 Red says “Yeah, but so what? It’s still awesome”, and that’s not exactly something I can’t disagree with.

The promotions and bonuses that the casino offers are also very weird and unusual – most casinos give you a 100% bonus on your first deposit, some going as far as to offer 200%. 32 Red, though, has decided to remain true to its name in spite of what common logic would imply by giving you £32 free for every £10 you deposit, which is roughly a 300% bonus – not a bad deal at all, if you’re willing to overlook how needlessly complicated its math is. The upper limit is £160, so you’re obviously not expected to be a high roller, which, once again, falls in with 32 Red’s philosophy that online casino should be fun and not something limited to only the elite and sophisticated in our society. As an added bonus to the bonus, you also get £10 for free when you sign on without even making a deposit. While all games have a demo feature (something I really adore), it’s always good to have a concrete amount of money to play around with while you’re testing the waters. There’s also a 150% welcome bonus for slots, but the one that I’m sure most of my readers are way more interested in is the 100% roulette bonus which can give you up to £250 for roulette. And you’re gonna want to use that bonus because, out of the 500+ games the casino offers, 9 are versions of roulette, which is more than what you’ll typically find in Microgaming (or anywhere, really). So if you’re up for some good old-fashioned fun, 32 Red is for you!

Spin Casino

Now, if you’re not really a fan of 32 Red’s eccentricity, then you’re probably a pretty boring person and I don’t think I like you. But seriously though, if you believe that online casino is serious business, then there’s plenty of Microgaming-powered casinos that will accommodate you. Take, for example, Spin Casino – a relatively unknown, yet still very reliable and interesting online casino (that, sadly, has nothing to do with the similarly titled Michael J. Fox series). Its layout is all about black and purple – you couldn’t get any more formal if you had Alan Rickman in a suit walking down the red carpet surrounded by the band from Reservoir Dogs while Morgan Freeman does the narration! The casino doesn’t just accommodate the VIP high-roller audience – it fully and completely embraces it. To quote directly from the site: “We roll out the red carpet for our VIP players. With access to the latest high-limit games, exclusive tournaments, personalised gifts and a VIP Host, there’s nothing like being a Spin Casino VIP”. That’s dedication, even if it’s somehow undercut by the fact that there’s no high-roller bonus. There is, however, a highly exclusive VIP club to which you can be invited (you can’t apply on your own), which provides a personalized VIP host who is there with the sole purpose of making you happy. Imagine having your own dealer in a casino who is getting paid to make sure your every whim is catered to. Definitely sounds like something a Forever Alone like me could use, if I wasn’t too poor to afford entry into the VIP club.

If you, too, are finding it a bit out of your pocket to bet thousands on online casino games, then don’t worry, you don’t need to. Spin Casino also has a pretty good loyalty program that’s segregated into six different tiers. The team take into account the frequency and size of your bets and decide when to offer you a promotion – the higher you climb the social ladder, and the better your rank is, the more bonuses you’re going to get. As you keep climbing up you’re going to get stuff like exclusive gifts, an exclusive VIP phone number (just in case your VIP host isn’t doing the trick anymore), faster withdrawals and customized bonus offers. Entry-level players also have several concrete bonuses to look forward to, such as three different deposit bonuses (100%, 25% and 50% match, respectively), which isn’t bad, but isn’t all that great either. The casino most certainly places a lot more emphasis on keeping existing customers happy rather than on attracting new ones, which is a stark departure from what you see in most online casinos. With that said, there’s one pretty major drawback, which is the lack of a browser version – if you want to play you need to download the client, which might be a deal breaker for some people who prefer the convenience of being able to play without dealing with potentially troublesome apps.

Betway

Betway is definitely one of the leading bookmakers, right alongside Paddy Power and Betfair (or I guess I should start calling them Betty Power, after their recent merger) – they are known for being a very reliable bookie with good offers, tons of marketing and generally a good business sense. So, with that said, how does their Casino branch hold up? Well… If I’m to be truly, completely, 100% honest with you, it doesn’t hold up as well as their main betting branch – it seems more like an afterthought, an addition to make a little bit more money with the Betway name. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, don’t get me wrong – it’s a perfectly adequate online casino that’s bound to satisfy your gambling needs, with PLENTY of games to choose from. While the number isn’t gigantic, they cover everything from the slot machines and roulette that every casino has to more obscure stuff such as scratch cards and keno. The right ingredients are there, but they never really mesh together all that well in order to create something unique. Overall, the entire Betway casino seems very by-the-book – these are the games that other people have, that’s the design others implement, those are the bonuses that others offer. The Betway casino never really strives to build its own identity, never shoots for the stars, so to speak. It doesn’t try to be eccentric or offer a fancy loyalty program – it’s just there because a lot of other betting sites have casinos.

But that shouldn’t really deter you from trying it out. After all, for some people casino is a business, not a game. They play online casinos to win rather than to have a fun time, and those people don’t need cute graphics – they need a good variety of games, a practical and intuitive UI and a decent RTP percentage – all of which are qualities that Betway possesses. At 97% return to player rate, Betway is actually among the best of the business in the UK. Similarly to Spin Casino, here you also have access to 3 subsequent deposit bonuses (once again for 100%, 25% and 50% match), which aren’t great, but they’re most certainly not bad either. So at the end of the day, while Betway is relatively unremarkable, I can’t honestly say that it’s a bad casino, as it’s actually a really good one. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re interested in Microgaming’s games, but 32Red and Spin Casino aren’t your cup of tea.