Evolution Wins Approval for Its Biggest Atlantic City Studio

Evolution has cleared the final regulatory step for a new Atlantic City studio, and the address it picked says plenty about where New Jersey gambling money goes now. State gaming regulators have approved the facility, which takes up roughly 60,000 square feet on the second floor of the Showboat Resort. It becomes the largest live casino production site the supplier runs anywhere in the state.

Showboat operates as a hotel today, with no slot machines and no table games anywhere on the property. Caesars Entertainment closed the gaming floor in 2014. That left one of the Boardwalk’s largest buildings hunting for revenue that had nothing to do with dealing cards to anyone who walked in off the beach, and live dealer broadcasting now fills part of the gap.

Why Evolution Chose Atlantic City for Its Largest Studio

The route to Evolution’s largest Atlantic City studio was not direct. The company spent 2024 planning a $75 million project at 2301 Fairmount Avenue, a purpose built facility covering 130,000 square feet, then dropped it in favour of the Showboat and called the change a faster way to add capacity. Renting a finished floor beats waiting on a construction crew. Demand for live tables already exists, and the supplier would rather serve it now than two years from now.

Evolution already runs three Atlantic City studios, at Tropicana, Hard Rock and Ocean Casino, and the Showboat space will carry more capacity than any of them. The client list explains the appetite. Its tables feed FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars Palace Online Casino, Hard Rock Bet, BetFanatics and BetRivers. Operators on that list want branded tables of their own, and branded tables need real floor space, cameras, pit layouts and dealers working shifts, which comes before counting the NetEnt, Red Tiger and DigiWheel content Evolution also owns.

The supplier’s third quarter report showed growth across all regions for the first time in two years. That timing helps. A company pointing to recovering demand has an easier case for new capacity than one defending a flat quarter. New Jersey also remains among the busiest markets Evolution serves, which is why another Atlantic City studio makes sense on its books.

Online Growth Keeps Outpacing the Casino Floor

The figures behind the decision are not subtle. Online casino play in New Jersey produced $2.91 billion in 2025, then grew another 13% through September 2026. Every full calendar year since launch has set a fresh record, giving the state twelve consecutive years of growth in a single vertical.

Atlantic City’s nine casinos collected $2.89 billion from in-person slots and table games last year, up slightly from the $2.81 billion they took the year before. Then the direction changed. In-person revenue has slipped 1.3% through September while online play kept climbing, and the gap between those two lines explains why Evolution wants more Atlantic City studio capacity rather than less.

A Landlord Under Financial Pressure

The building itself sits in a complicated position. Owner Bart Blatstein faces foreclosure proceedings over an alleged unpaid mortgage of $48.5 million held by Barclays Capital Real Estate. Court filings also cite more than $1 million in unpaid insurance premiums, outstanding renovation and mold remediation obligations, and a state tax lien above $400,000. Those claims remain allegations at this stage, and no court has ruled on them.

Blatstein paid $23 million for the property around a decade ago and has since funded the Island Waterpark and the Lucky Snake arcade on the same site. A tenant like Evolution, leasing 60,000 square feet of Atlantic City studio space, arrives at a useful moment. The symmetry is hard to miss. Online casino play helped empty the gaming floor downstairs, and it now helps cover the building’s costs from the floor above.

What Happens Next

Plenty remains unconfirmed. Evolution has not announced an opening date for its Atlantic City studio, and the company has not given a table count or a hiring target either. Regulatory clearance lets the operation start, yet it reveals nothing about when the first dealer goes on camera.

Live dealer content has become the growth engine of American online casino, and suppliers are racing to add table capacity in the handful of states that permit it. Evolution is betting that Atlantic City studio space returns more than the casino floor that once occupied the same address. The Showboat’s second floor will test that bet inside a building where the older model already failed.