Avanti Studios, Sentient Studios, and Evolution are at the centre of a growing debate about whether artificial intelligence will fundamentally transform the live casino industry.
The live casino sector has long been dominated by giants such as Evolution, Pragmatic Play, and Playtech, who built their competitive positions on expensive physical studio infrastructure and high operational costs.
A new wave of start-ups now believes that AI-powered virtual dealers can replicate the live experience at a fraction of the cost, presenting both a threat and an opportunity across the market.
Avanti Studios, founded by ex-LeoVegas chief Gustaf Hagman and former Authentic Gaming founder and CEO Jonas Delin, announced ahead of ICE its plans to use motion capture technology to build the most realistic virtual casino experience yet.
Delin laid out the financial case clearly, noting that launching six blackjack tables traditionally costs between $300,000 and $500,000 in development, plus between $800,000 and $1 million in staff costs for approximately 40 dealers.
“Avanti changes this completely: setting up one dedicated table costs the same as setting up 100: no studio construction, no hiring, no staff overhead, and the operator will only be charged a fair percentage of revenue sharing,” Delin said.
Analysts at Rothschild Redburn argued earlier in the year that eliminating the requirement for a live dealer studio buildout shortens time to market and removes significant upfront capital expenditure requirements for operators.
Rothschild Redburn further suggested that AI live dealer will increasingly become part of Evolution’s equity story as more competitive products enter the marketplace over time.
Evolution chief executive Martin Carlesund, speaking at the company’s AGM in April, pushed back on the idea that AI can fully replicate live dealer, positioning the question of whether audiences will still want real actors in films as a relevant analogy.
“That need will not go away,” Carlesund said, adding that Evolution expects its live dealer offering to keep expanding even as virtual dealers are acknowledged as a separate category within the company’s roadmap.
Regulatory bodies appear to share that view, with Pennsylvania issuing guidance that virtual casino products should be classified as RNG rather than live dealer, potentially affecting betting limits and tax treatment.
A legal expert who spoke anonymously noted that virtual-dealer games should not appear under live-dealer tabs and that regulators understand and will continue moving in the direction of treating them as distinct categories.
Avanti has since confirmed it successfully raised an additional €5 million in seed funding, with its product first launched in Spain before planned expansions into Brazil, Mexico, and eventually the United States.
Delin pointed to blackjack’s dominance of US live casino at 65% of the market, arguing that current scalability limits mean players in Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania struggle to find tables with bet limits below $25.
“We believe that we can bring live blackjack to an audience that perhaps wants to bet $1 a hand. Because of our much lower operational cost, that becomes a possibility,” Delin said.
FanDuel founder Nigel Eccles also entered the space, announcing a $10 million Series A funding round for his new start-up Sentient Studios, which he says can better replicate the land-based casino experience than current live dealer products.
Eccles claimed his product operates in 140 languages, can be fully branded and customised, and scales from zero to a million dedicated tables, highlighting a three-second table wait time and strong player satisfaction scores.
“Within five years’ time, I suspect 80% of live dealer will be AI. What’s not clear to me is whether it’s going to be totally cannibalistic or actually is going to grow the market,” Eccles said.
Fintan Costello, industry expert and co-host of the Gambling Files podcast, offered a sceptical view, arguing that current AI live dealer products remain stuck in what robot experts call the uncanny valley, with repetitive movements and an overall experience that feels unconvincing.
“People who want to play live dealer casino games want a real person with real cards or roulette wheel. A virtual person with virtual cards isn’t going to change that. It’s the virtual table games that are at risk,” Costello said.
Both Delin and Eccles believe that rather than eliminating jobs, the expansion of AI live casino will ultimately grow the overall market and create new technical roles to compensate for those displaced by automation.
