Same quarter, opposite results: Playtech rose, Evolution fell. Where you sell decided it.
Playtech’s half-year update on 13 July came in well ahead of expectations. The US drove it, plus strength in Mexico, Colombia and parts of Europe. It guided first-half profit above €155M and raised the full-year figure toward €270M.
This lands in the same period the UK doubled its online gaming tax from 21% to 40% on 1 April 2026. The tax hits about 310 firms.
The knee-jerk read of a tax rise is that margins shrink across the board, and the evidence says otherwise.
Playtech raised its forecast in the same quarter Evolution reported a decline. The difference comes down to which markets each one leans on, more than product or price.
So the real question moves from how to swallow the tax to which markets a supplier is over-exposed to. Most suppliers have never spelled that out.
The UK tax hits online gaming hardest, so the wrong product mix makes the wrong geography worse for slots and live-casino specialists.
Expect the gap between US and Latin-America-heavy suppliers and Europe-heavy ones to widen through the rest of the year. Kambi’s numbers on 22 July are the next test of whether geography is the whole story.