Share
DraftKings is shutting down its Atlantic City live dealer casino studio, though its players will still get to enjoy live dealer games in a more generic form. In addition to lost jobs, the closure may signal that bespoke studios are becoming a thing of the past as the US online casino industry looks to cut costs.
The shutdown, according to a New Jersey WARN Act notice, will cause the layoffs of 101 employees, effective January 31st, 2025, although the company says it will give affected staff a soft landing the best way it can.
We are supporting impacted employees to offer a smooth transition for as many as possible. Our live dealer offerings will remain uninterrupted.
Evolution likely to remain DraftKings’ live dealer provider
While the Atlantic City live dealer casino studio has been shut down, DraftKings will still offer live dealer games. However, they’ll come from a third party, likely Evolution, which provided the technology for the now-defunct DraftKings in-house studio.
A DraftKings spokesperson said the transition to new studios would be simultaneous with the shutdown of its existing product on Jan. 31, 2025.
Cost-cutting is now the name of the game for US online casinos, which have earned billions in revenue but struggled to do so profitably. Managing a state-of-the-art studio may be an extravagance DraftKings’ bottom line can’t afford, prompting these drastic measures. At the same time, we see Evolution expanding its secondary brand, Ezugi, with a product line that includes higher-margin products like Triple Zero Roulette.
That leads to the question of whether other operators’ bespoke studios are likely to experience a similar fate. BetMGM Casino has one in Michigan, while FanDuel has one in Pennsylvania. They followed DraftKings’ lead in launching those studios. It remains to be seen if they do the same as it reverses course.
The live dealer market’s explosive growth stems from its ability to replicate an authentic casino experience. Players crave realism, and live dealers deliver. By combining social interaction, transparency, and human elements, live dealer games have become the gold standard for online table gaming. However, those benefits come at the cost of higher overhead and a slower pace of play. We can expect to see operators looking for compromises to improve the profitability of these products, such as Evolution’s First Person line or Inspired’s hybrid dealer products.
The rise and fall of DraftKings’s live dealer studio
DraftKings launched the soon-to-be-shuttered custom studio in 2022, the same year it took control of Golden Nugget Online Gaming (GNOG).
As part of the acquisition, DraftKings signaled its intention to integrate GNOG’s live dealer expertise. This was not surprising, considering GNOG’s history was entwined with the origins of live dealer gaming in the US.
In 2016, Ezugi opened the nation’s first live dealer studio on-site at Golden Nugget’s physical property in Atlantic City. At that time, Golden Nugget’s retail and online wings were still the same company—GNOG split off to become publicly traded in 2020.
Evolution, the international leader in live dealer games, opened its first US studio at Hard Rock Casino Atlantic City in 2018 and acquired Ezugi a few months later to secure a monopoly. Its studio was the first to provide games to DraftKings Casino beginning in 2019.
With the closure of the bespoke studio, DraftKings will likely be moving players back to that studio. That may mean generic tables shared with other operators, though it may still request exclusive tables from Evolution, just with a lesser degree of branding.
