Ezugi Live Casino Studio Visit to Bucharest, Romania

Ezugi Studio Visit

In 2017 I went on my travels to visit some live casino operators with studios in Costa Rica. It was work but also included a great holiday. What a fabulous country!

It was there I first met Ezugi and they extended me a warm welcome to visit their live dealer studio. I met a few dealers and saw how they delivered their live casino solution.

A lot has changed since then.

The live casino sector has blossomed and providers have come and gone. Ezugi has grown, opened a studio in New Jersey, and been sold to Evolution. It’s closed its Costa Rica Studio and has opened a brand new state of the art studio in Bucharest, Romania.

Which leads nicely into this update.

The new studio in Bucharest opened around November 2018. It’s taken me a year to get my act together to schedule a visit, which I managed to fit in November 2019.

My aim is quite simple. To get a behind the scenes look at the studio, to learn more about the products and what it takes to get the end result. I learned some interesting stuff along the way and hope you find this interesting.

You might wonder why I’m interested in Ezugi when as a UK citizen I’m unable to play their casino games online.

It’s simple really – they are a leading supplier of live dealer games and I want to ensure that anyone looking for gaming recommendations gets a completely unbiased view of the suppliers.

I do play their games, but not for real money. I would if I could and hopefully, that day will come.

New Licenses

Ezugi has just been granted a Maltese Gaming License, so we’ll be seeing a lot more casinos in Europe adding their games, so this is quite timely for them.

The word on the street is a UK license could be coming; however there was no commitment on when this may be.

The Studio Tour

The live casino studio is on the ground floor of a very large modern office building, just outside the centre of Bucharest.

The offices are all glass partitioned, covered with modesty film in the shape of playing cards suits.

The same imagery is reflected in the lamp shade designs which cover the main reception ceiling area.  All very modern and clean looking.

The Studio

I was introduced to Hulya, the Live Casino Manager who guided me around the studio.

The studio is one of the cleanest and tidiest I’ve seen so far. It’s spacious with plenty of room for expansion.

The studio is currently divided into 3 areas, each with a selection of different tables games.

Live Casino Games

The games include Blackjack, Roulette, Baccarat, Casino Hold’em, Teen Patti, and Andar Bahar which are available 24 x 7.

The dealers are mostly students who work shifts to cover 24 hours 7 days a week.

I was surprised to hear there are over 180 dealers!

Monitoring

Keeping a watchful eye on everything is a team of staff who provide around the clock support for the infrastructure, games, customers, and dealers.

All games are monitored from a room overlooking the gaming floor, which also holds the card sorting and storage area. I hadn’t appreciated just how much goes into ensuring the cards are kept in the best possible condition.

All cards are shuffled at the tables in view of all players.

Training Academy

A training academy was in full swing, with new recruits being put through their paces.

It’s a 14 days training program punctuated with exams to see who will make it as a dealer.

Card skills are taught alongside all aspects of presenting a game online. There’s a lot more to it than just dealing cards or spinning the roulette wheel, as I found out!

I had a go at Blackjack and Roulette, you can see the results here lol.

It’s more difficult than it looks.  I’ve had previous with a Roulette Ball, but with some patience from Denisa I quickly got the hang of it!

Perhaps they might look for an older generation dealer – surely there’s a market! Could be my second career!

Game Reviews

One of the things I do is game reviews. You’ve seen them here and also on Youtube (hopefully).

I had a session with a couple of people from the product team and we discussed some of my reviews and comments.

I was happily surprised they had taken on board most of my suggestions. They had either fixed the games or were in the queue for development.

Trip Summary

The Romanian studio has lots of room for expansion and with a new Latin American Studio just opened to service those markets Ezugi is going from strength to strength.

New markets are being explored with new games like Teen Patti and Andar Bahar being added to the playing options.

I’m really grateful to have been given the opportunity to see behind the scenes.

Everyone was very friendly and treated me so well.

Special thanks to Craig and Alex for organising everything and for Denisa and Carina for having so much patience while “training” me.

Ben, Idan, Hulya, Narcis, Costi and Gilad all took time out of their day to speak with me, for which I was very grateful.

Gambling in Bucharest

It would have been rude not to, but while I was there I took the opportunity to visit the Grand Casino, where Evolution Gaming has a Dual Play Roulette table.

I can report that it worked well, as did the card games I played that divested me of my bankroll in record time!

Think I’ll stick to online!

 

If you fancy playing against some of the dealers you can see in the pictures or just want to try the Ezugi experience visit my list of Ezugi Live Casinos.