Chavdar Vasilev is a journalist covering the casino and sports betting market sectors for CasinoBeats. He joined CasinoBeats in May 2025 and reports on industry-shaping stories across the US and beyond, including legislative debates, market...
Read Full BioGaming giant Evolution AB is facing a new compliance hurdle in Asia: its Philippine partner for a live-casino studio had a key license revoked. While Evolution insists that its recently launched Manila studio is unaffected, the development highlights the growing compliance risks for the company as it expands across multiple regions.
PAGCOR Revokes One Visaya’s B2C License
On August 28, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) revoked the gaming system administrator license held by One Visaya Gaming Corp., a Cebu-based company. The regulator told Bloomberg that the decision was based on violations of KYC (know-your-customer) rules. KYC rules are in place to verify players’ identities and prevent fraud and money laundering.
The revoked license covers One Visaya’s online casino platform Bigwin29, which must shut down by October 8. All content providers, including Evolution, can no longer provide games to Big Win 29.
One Visaya’s separate license to operate the live casino studio, in conjunction with Evolution, remains unaffected. Evolution and One Visaya both maintain that the two licenses are fully independent and that studio operations are unaffected.
Reports suggest that One Visaya has filed a motion for reconsideration (i.e., an appeal) regarding the revoked license. That’s unconfirmed, and PAGCOR has yet to issue a decision on that.
Market Reaction & Share Slide
Investors reacted negatively to the news. Evolution’s shares dropped as much as 5.9%, before settling around a 4.5% decline in the Stockholm market.
The notable dip is unsurprising. In its Q2 2025 earnings, Evolution highlighted Asia and the new Philippines live studio as key growth drivers for the company, despite the region’s ongoing cyberattacks. The stock rose 7% after the results beat estimates.
Compliance Clouds: Black Market Access & Past Allegations
One Visaya’s license revocation comes at a time of regulatory pressure and reputational challenges for Evolution.
In August, leaked secret recordings allegedly revealed that executives were aware that Evolution’s games were accessible in black-market jurisdictions. Those included China, Iran, and Sudan. The news resulted in Evolution’s stock plummeting over 10%.
Evolution has consistently claimed that it uses industry-standard tools and conducts thorough due diligence to prevent its products from entering prohibited markets. Still, according to its Q2 2025 earnings, 56% of its revenue comes from unregulated markets.
US Sweepstakes Risk Adds Pressure
The regulatory scrutiny expands beyond Asia. Evolution’s involvement in US sweepstakes casinos is also under fire.
About two weeks after the leaked recordings came to light, the Los Angeles City Attorney filed a civil enforcement lawsuit against sweepstakes casino Stake.us and several other defendants, including Evolution and its subsidiaries. The lawsuit accuses them of allegedly operating or aiding an illegal gambling enterprise in California.
A few days later, Evolution pulled its games from Stake in California. However, it still supplies content to other sweepstakes platforms in California and across the US, maintaining significant exposure in the sector.
With the sweepstakes casino industry facing growing pressure and multiple state bans along with regulatory enforcement actions, Evolution’s business (and revenue) in the sector is under threat.
Furthermore, its unregulated activity also risks jeopardizing its supplier licenses for real-money online casinos in the US. That happened to High 5 Games, which lost its license in Connecticut.
Outlook & Strategic Risks
Evolution is in a delicate position. While it claims the Manila studio is unaffected by the Bigwin29 developments, regulators could look into the connection between the B2C (business-to-customer) and B2B (business-to-business) licenses in practice.
If One Visaya appeals and wins, it would ease the pressure. If not, the shutdown of Bigwin29 could erode trust in the partnership.
Regulators elsewhere may also take notice. The incident could highlight the importance of partner compliance and put additional pressure on Evolution.
Additionally, the involvement in the US sweepstakes segment amplifies the risk of Evolution defending multiple fronts simultaneously.
While Evolution praised Asia as a primary growth factor, the company faces new challenges of compliance, public perception, and regulatory scrutiny.
