Evolution triggers internal review following bid to "discredit” supplier

Evolution has moved to refute allegations it had been offering its services illegally across the globe as the live casino supplier launches an internal review into the matter.

Last week, Evolution was subject to a complaint from Ralph Marra of Calcagni & Kanefsky LLP on behalf of unnamed private investigators which claimed the supplier had offered its games in Iran, Syria and Sudan, all three of which are subject to US economic and financial sanctions.

The report also claimed Evolution was offering its services in Hong Kong and Singapore, where online gambling is illegal, and via unlicensed third parties across Europe.

The complaint resulted in $3bn being wiped off the value of Evolution’s shares.

Evolution has refuted these claims, dismissing the report as “anonymous and dubious” and moving to clarify how it was possible that users were able to access Evolution content in these markets.

Evolution said its content was made available via an operator that was not an Evolution customer but was connected to an aggregator platform, which is an Evolution customer.

The live casino supplier said the user was able to access its content via a VPN-tunnel from an IP address in a blocked country to obtain an IP address in an accepted country.

VPNs, or virtual private networks, allow users to alter their IP address to access content they would not otherwise be allowed to access due to geographical restrictions.

From this acceptable IP address, a connection via the operator to Evolution’s lobby was made, which cleared the geographical checks and established a connection.

After the connection was established, Evolution confirmed the VPN was discontinued, leaving the original IP address from the blocked country active.

Evolution said multiple attempts to connect from the blocked country IP address had been made prior to the launch of the VPN.

Evolution said: “This is a deliberate course of action to circumvent a broadly accepted and well-established process to check users’ geographical location, with the purpose of discrediting Evolution.”

An internal review has been initiated at the Stockholm-listed firm as it prepares itself for questioning from regulators.

Evolution revealed it had proactively reached out to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement regarding the matter.

Elsewhere in its statement, Evolution reaffirmed the fact that as a supplier it does not handle players or any players’ money and acts as a service provider to operators.

Evolution said: “It is the operator’s responsibility to conduct a KYC on each player and decide what markets to focus on and what players to accept. It is the operator’s responsibility to comply with their regulation and their licence.

“It is important to point out that Evolution does not own or control any of the operators or aggregators the company work with. Thus, Evolution does not control which players the operators allow to play.

“It is equally important to point out that Evolution uses tools at its disposal to block play from certain countries, including countries on sanction lists.”

Evolution’s share price was down 1% at the time of writing.