Evolution Opens Sofia Live Casino Studio to Serve Central European Markets
Evolution has officially launched its new live dealer studio in Sofia, Bulgaria, expanding its European production footprint to 14 facilities. The 8,000-square-metre site will host over 80 tables and create more than 1,200 jobs, targeting operators across Romania, Hungary, Czechia, and the Balkans.
Evolution has cut the ribbon on its long-anticipated Sofia live casino studio, marking the operator's largest Central European investment to date. The 8,000-square-metre facility, located in the Sofia Tech Park district, will house more than 80 live blackjack, roulette, baccarat, and game show tables at full capacity. Company executives confirmed at the opening ceremony that the studio will begin streaming to licensed operators from mid-September, with a phased ramp-up continuing through Q1 2027.
The Bulgarian expansion is strategically positioned to serve rapidly maturing regulated markets across Central and Eastern Europe. Romania, which recently overhauled its licensing framework, along with Hungary's newly liberalised online vertical and the Czech regulated market, are named as primary distribution targets. Evolution CEO Martin Carlesund said the Sofia hub will also provide multilingual dealer coverage in Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian, Czech, Serbian, and Greek, addressing a persistent gap in localised live content for the region.
The project represents a projected €95 million capital investment and is expected to generate approximately 1,200 new roles, including dealers, game presenters, studio technicians, and production staff. Bulgarian Deputy Economy Minister Ivan Petrov, present at the launch, highlighted the studio as one of the largest single foreign direct investments in the country's tech services sector this year. Evolution has also committed to a dedicated training academy in partnership with Sofia University to develop long-term talent pipelines.
Industry analysts view the Sofia rollout as a defensive move against intensifying live casino competition from Pragmatic Play and Playtech, both of which have scaled European studio operations aggressively over the past 18 months. With Evolution's North American growth normalising and Asian markets facing regulatory headwinds, deepening its European moat through localised production capacity is seen as central to sustaining the double-digit revenue growth investors have come to expect.