evoke chief executive and Gaming Intelligence Hot 50 of 2025 honouree Per Widerström talks about the operator’s multi-brand strategy, M&A and personalisation with AI
The festive season is well underway when we sit down with evoke chief executive Per Widerström at the company’s office in central London. The cheeriness of the shoppers outside seems to have infused into the company, even if the dazzling Christmas lights outside his window are somewhat wasted on the chief executive.
“I wish I had time to enjoy them,” Widerström says with a laugh when they are pointed out to him. He has had one of the more difficult CEO jobs in the industry since he joined in July 2023, tasked with turning around a business that had seemed rudderless in recent years.
Widerström took on the top job as the operator posted a 7 per cent decline in pro forma revenue and a net loss of $33 million for the first half of 2023. Fast-forward just over 12 months and the now rebranded operator has returned to growth for the first time since the first quarter of 2022, as group revenue increased by 3 per cent to £416.6 million. When asked about the turnaround, Widerström credits the great work ethic within evoke.
“I think it’s a testament to what the organisation and our colleagues have been doing and now we can prove and show that the turnaround and the strategy we’ve implemented is starting to work. Returning to growth after more than two years is important. It’s important for us as an organisation but we have a long way to go, our glass is half full and we are focused on continuing the good work so far,” he says.
As a part of the new strategy, the business structure has been streamlined at evoke, going from 10 layers of management to six, which Widerström says is about “unclogging the system”.
“It is also about giving our colleagues a closer reach to me and to make us more efficient. When we had all those layers it felt more like too many chefs in the kitchen. However, with less layers there is greater exposure and responsibility.”
Another key pillar for Widerström is becoming more cost-efficient, which in some circles could spell out redundancies and office closures, but Widerström does not see it that way.
“In many areas, it is about value creation, the resources that go into our operating model and its output. When I came in, it was clear that the numbers didn’t stack up. In my first 100 days, one of the first decisions I wanted to make was to initiate a cost optimisation program that included a much more cost-efficient operational model.”
Going to market
One of the biggest success stories in Widerström’s opening 18 months is how well the company’s acquisition of Winner.ro has played out and contributed to its return to growth.
In August, evoke announced the acquisition of New Gambling Solutions’ Winner.ro brand for a cash consideration of €10 million. As part of the acquisition, it combined its Romania-facing 888.ro business with the Winner brand.
Following this move, evoke added Romania to its core market segment, which also includes the United Kingdom, Denmark, Spain, and Italy. In the third quarter of 2024, these markets recorded 11 per cent growth and accounted for 85 per cent of the operator’s total online revenue.
Widerström is pleased to have gained such a strong foothold in Eastern Europe, particularly the Romanian market which he is very familiar with.
“It’s great to be going for a podium position in Romania now. Romania is a market that I have great experience in from my time as CEO of Fortuna Entertainment. I had the opportunity to better understand the market for six years, and to bring that knowledge here has helped.
“This deal with Winner, a great local brand with a strong local proposition, has helped us to have a bigger consolidated entity in Romania, which I am delighted about. It is also great to work with Nicklas Zajdel again, as we worked together when I was at Fortuna.
“As a company, we have taken one of our optimised markets and injected investment into it to grow it and get the fundamentals in place to turn it into our fifth core market.”
Success in Romania might have led some people to think that evoke would look at other local champion operators in Eastern European markets to drive further growth.
However, Widerström was quick to downplay further M&A in that part of Europe.
“We are very clear that less is more,” he says. “When we put forward the new strategy, that is one thing we were very clear about. When we expand our core markets, we must be laser-focused on how we enter a market. Before we acquired Winner, we had four core markets. Now that we have added Romania, we will invest in those markets and aim to either gain or retain a podium position.
“Outside of these core markets, we have optimised markets, and we use those markets to drive cash flow into our core markets. However, when we see an opportunity to scale up an optimised market, like we did in Romania, then that is something that can be explored, however for now we are focused on our core markets.”
One area that may be considered a failure at evoke relates to the decision to withdraw its US B2C offering by the first half of 2025. Despite this withdrawal, Widerström remains positive about how the B2B business is doing in the US.
“This was one of the most important decisions when I came together with my new team to look at the numbers and decide our vision and strategy for the short, medium and long term. When we looked at the B2C offering in the US and tried to fit it into our value creation plan, adding further investment into this vertical made no sense to us. So, for us, it was about how to withdraw from the market in a responsible way that allows us to maximise our assets, and that is our B2B offering.
“We have one of the leading poker networks from a liquidity perspective in the US. We have our partnership with Caesars, and as such we are really pleased with our B2B offering in the US and it is profitable for us to continue with it. There is no massive urge at this time to do any structured change to what is working in the US, and we have decided it will not be one of our core B2C markets for the time being.”
Best of British
Widerström also delves into another of evoke’s core markets, the United Kingdom. Like many industry stakeholders, he was braced for a higher level of gambling tax than what appeared in Rachel Reeves’ first budget in October, giving him a certain level of relief.
“When it comes to things such as tax and the regulatory framework, all we want is stability. We want to be a fantastic operator and employer, employ great people, to contribute positively to society. To do this, we need stability. We also need to have fair competition as well. If we don’t have this and we get penalised as the licensed sector, the black market will balloon in size, and no one wants that,” he explains.
“We are working closely with the government and the Gambling Commission to under and implement all the changes that are being implemented as a result of the White Paper into the Gambling Act 2005 review. Hopefully, once the White Paper is fully executed, it will create a level playing field for everyone in the industry.”
One area of the October budget that might be a cause for concern is the increase in employer national insurance contributions, which will take effect in April and increase from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent of employee salaries.
This is not helpful when the business is already busy implementing cost-cutting measures, but Widerström takes it in his stride.
“We are constantly looking at ways of driving value for our shareholders. Having sustainable profit and growth simultaneously is tricky for us as a company. When we look at the budget’s impact and the additional cost pressures because of this, I am confident that we can deal with it.”
Redefining the brand
Another bold move in the company’s recent history was the decision to ditch 888 as the corporate name in favour of evoke, in order to better reflect the company’s multi-brand portfolio following the acquisition of William Hill.
“It is a reset for the company and we are very much focused on our great future that is to come, which is something we truly believe. We will of course leverage some of the great legacy of the company but we want to make it absolutely clear that what has been before is not our future.”
Widerström adds that the company is working hard to make its three brands, 888, William Hill and Mr Green, more distinct.
“When looking at a brand like William Hill, we look at the brand, the look, the feel and also the customer promise, and we want to know why our players come to play at William Hill. From what we have seen, it is down to the brand’s consistency and continuity of what it offers to players.
“Looking at the customer value proposition, we will be looking to go back to the roots of what William Hill has been. To do this, we carried out extensive research using customer data and examined the player base we have today. We are looking at target groups that we want to aim at and how that translates into very specific customer value propositions when it comes to product pricing, promotions and so on.”
“When we changed our commercial team responsible for the UK market earlier this year, we did quite a fundamental shift in terms of our proposition. While people understand what William Hill is, what we really wanted to make clear is what it stands for. For example, when it comes to TV racing, for the first race of the day, we have a top price guarantee. When it comes to football, we want to ensure that people place their bets with William Hill by offering the best value. What we need to be is consistent. We need to stay focused and honest to the customer.”
Let’s get personal
Another one of Widerström’s key strategic plans centres around increasing content personalisation for players, which ties in perfectly with his passion for Artificial Intelligence (AI).
“Another key focus of mine is what I like to call infinite personalisation. When you are tailoring content or incentives at the moment, you will send a particular bonus or piece of content to a particular customer group, this could be to hundreds or thousands of customers due to the fact that they have similar behaviour. What I want to do is collect real-time customer data and use it to create AI-generated insights. This will lead to more of a specific player experience to make them feel that they are getting a hyper-personalised experience,” he explains.
“We are even thinking about allowing players to give us their inputs into the configuration of a game. For example, they could tell us their favourite animals and colours or upload pictures. By giving us the content, we can use AI to create a unique AI-generated game for them.”
Keep moving forwards
Despite delivering the operator’s first quarter of revenue growth in two years, Widerström is not resting on his laurels and explains where he expects the company to be when sitting in this office staring out at the Christmas lights in 12 months’ time.
“We have been preparing and finalising our budget for 2025 and our major focus will be reconfirming our strategy and striving to transform this company further,” he says. “In the short-term, it means a continued trading turnaround. In essence, we are driving top-line growth, improving our underlying margin, and deleveraging from a financial perspective. We need to keep pushing ourselves as things are beginning to work.
“In the mid-to-long term, we are completely changing, resetting what this company will be. When you return in a year, you will see our William Hill and 888 brands looking quite different. We will be interacting with our customers differently and engaging with them in a much more sophisticated way,” Widerström asserts.
“We will also be talking about the advancements we have made with AI automation. We have a new division for this with great people from outside. We aren’t going to reinvent the wheel, but there will be further automation and integration of AI into all of our products and tech.
“We have a fantastic lineup of products coming through the pipeline, from retail cabinets to sports betting terminals, especially in the UK. We also want to show that evoke is the go-to destination employer in the sector.
“We have a long way to go between now and next year, but I am determined to get there.”
This interview was first published in the GIQ ICE 2025 magazine, where Widerström was unveiled as a Gaming Intelligence Hot 50 of 2025 honouree