Fourteen years spent building LeoVegas might have been enough to convince Gustaf Hagman to take an extended break from the gambling industry. It didn’t work out that way. Hagman stepped away following LeoVegas’ acquisition by MGM Resorts, but it was another technological shift that pulled him back. This time, rather than building an operator, he has crossed to the supplier side as Co-founder of Avanti Studios.
“Just like with LeoVegas, I think the disruptive technology and the technology shifts actually pulled me back to do something again in the industry,” says Hagman. “The opportunity was to do something totally different and disruptive again.”
Avanti launched at the beginning of 2026 and has moved quickly, raising €10m and securing operators including Entain and Superbet. Hagman admits the pace has been faster than anticipated. Much of the early work has centred on the technology required to bring Unreal Engine into the cloud, render games in real time and stream the resulting experience to players.
“It’s a big technical moat,” he says. “Not many other companies have done it. The big ones, of course, but it’s not normal for a startup. But we’d done it before, both me and Jonas. We are scale-up people, so it’s all in.”
The Jonas in question is Avanti Co-founder Jonas Delin, whose background provides the other half of the company’s proposition. While Hagman approaches the sector with the experience of an operator, Delin previously founded and ran live casino supplier Authentic Gaming. Hagman says those perspectives led them to the same conclusion: advances in technology had created an opportunity to approach live casino differently.
“The traditional live casino suppliers are doing it in one way, and we call that the traditional way of doing it. New technology gives us the opportunity, and gives the industry the opportunity, to do it another way.”
Digital, but still shared
Central to Avanti’s approach is its digital dealer technology. Despite the appearance of its digitally generated hosts, Hagman is careful about describing the current product as AI. “It’s not true AI today. It’s not based on a large language model or anything like that. It’s more traditional from a computer gaming perspective with Unreal Engine.”
Avanti considered both Unity and Unreal Engine before opting for the latter, with mobile performance playing an important part in that decision. Hagman expects the majority of Avanti’s players to access its games through mobile devices. More important than creating a convincing dealer, however, was recreating the shared experience of sitting at a live casino table.
Avanti wanted players to see how others at the table respond to cards and make their decisions. Hagman describes this as “multiplaying” or a “shared outcome”. “If you’re sitting on a blackjack table, you need to be able to see the other players – how they are reacting to the cards and how they are deciding on playing or not playing,” he explains. “If you don’t have that experience, then the game becomes really dull after a while because you’re just playing with the dealer and not experiencing what the other players are doing.”
The shared experience, he says, is not currently achievable using generative AI alone. For Avanti, gaming-engine technology therefore provides the bridge between RNG casino and traditional live dealer products. Early player behaviour is also challenging some of the company’s assumptions about who might be attracted to the format.
Avanti initially wondered whether digitally rendered dealers would resonate particularly strongly with players in their twenties and thirties, who are accustomed to digitally created content across gaming and social media. Hagman says early results from Spain have instead shown interest across different age groups, including VIP players. There is also another audience emerging. “We see some RNG players that like to have a better experience than just cards flying out of the air in a traditional RNG game,” he says. “Instead, they have a dealer there. We’re getting a little bit of traction from that side as well.”
Rethinking the economics
Traditional live casino requires tables, studio space, equipment and trained dealers. By replacing much of that physical infrastructure with a digital environment, Avanti believes it can alter both the cost base and the speed at which operators can launch or change tables.
“It’s cheaper than building all of these dedicated tables that the traditional live casino suppliers are doing,” says Hagman. “We’re passing those margins on to the operators, meaning our solution is much cheaper for them. It’s easier to start working with Avanti and also easier to scale up.”
One consequence is the ability to make lower-stakes tables economically viable. Hagman says traditional live casino tables commonly begin around the equivalent of €10, whereas Avanti can support tables at €0.50, €1, €2 and €5, which potentially puts the experience in front of players who might otherwise remain within RNG casino.
The same model gives Avanti greater freedom to experiment with individual games and environments. A physical studio concept can involve constructing sets and tables before an idea reaches players. A digital environment can instead be developed, tested and changed considerably faster. “I wouldn’t say a couple of days, but let’s say a couple of weeks creating a new game,” says Hagman. “We can try things, we can test things much cheaper and much faster. We can see what works in the market and tweak it.”
Brazil and the localisation opportunity
Hagman points to localisation as one of the advantages of the digital dealer model. Avanti plans to offer Brazilian Portuguese across four different accents, beginning with two before expanding the range. That flexibility is particularly relevant to Avanti’s expansion in Brazil, where it has partnered with Superbet. It can also create games and environments specifically for individual markets. In Brazil, this includes Futvôlei ao Vivo, while Avanti is also exploring influencer-led concepts.
Hagman believes the ability to develop these ideas without constructing an entirely new physical studio changes what suppliers and operators can attempt. “I think that type of innovation is here to stay, and it’s going to be even more important in the future,” he says. Ahead of the World Cup, for example, Hagman says one customer has requested a football-themed game and environment. And seasonality can be approached in the same way. Christmas backgrounds can be introduced without rebuilding a physical studio, while Avanti is already producing tables for a customer using different cities as their backdrops and names.
For Hagman, this opens up a closer relationship between live casino and operator marketing teams. “You can create six-week campaigns, for instance. You can put an ambassador playing blackjack behind the table. There is a lot of stuff you can do.” The aim is to connect the marketing creative outside the casino lobby with the experience players encounter once they click through to the game. “If they’re marketing something on a banner and a customer clicks on that one, they will come to a game with the same kind of look and feel.”
The operator perspective
Hagman’s years on the other side of the supplier relationship are influencing how Avanti wants to work with its customers. He recalls frustration at LeoVegas with the limited amount of information available from suppliers about how operators should scale their live casino offering, which tables were required and how those requirements differed between markets. Avanti wants to take a more proactive approach.
“We want to be really data-driven together with the operators and tell them, ‘It’s probably time for you to scale up and have another €5 table here,’ or, ‘Why don’t we do a localised table for you over here?'” Such a model might involve language or accents, a new table limit or a campaign built around a particular market.
Moving from operator to supplier has nevertheless required some adjustment for Hagman. One thing he misses is the immediate feedback generated by consumer-facing campaigns. “As an operator, you create a campaign and you get an instant reaction on that campaign, if it’s good or bad, and you can measure those things.” Brand building is different too. LeoVegas was built for hundreds of thousands of players. Avanti must establish its identity primarily among operators while its products ultimately sit in front of their customers.
Moving quickly
Avanti’s expansion is already moving beyond its initial European launches and Brazil. Hagman says the company is applying for licences in Alberta and Ontario, while holding early discussions with operators in South Africa, Mexico and several European markets. The choice of each new territory is being driven by regulation, market maturity and operator interest rather than a single geographical strategy. There is also an awareness that Avanti is unlikely to remain alone in pursuing digitally generated live casino.
“In due time there will be competitors to Avanti,” says Hagman. “People are really watching what we’re doing and we’re not being that quiet about it.” The response is to establish operator relationships across multiple markets while continuing to build the product portfolio. Hagman says a steady pipeline of new games is already planned for 2027. It is a familiar position for an entrepreneur who has already taken one gambling startup from launch through international expansion and ultimately acquisition. But Hagman is approaching the industry from the opposite side of the table this time.
Asked how large the ambition for Avanti is, his answer is uncomplicated. “Big. Really big.”
The evidence Hagman is watching most closely now comes from the players themselves. Early KPIs, he says, are tracking similarly to conventional live casino in areas including wagering and rounds played, although he stresses that the data remains at an early stage. “We can clearly see the demand,” he says. “These past couple of weeks we also see the end users and the player KPIs looking really healthy. We believe that we are onto something and we are changing something. Let’s see how far it can take us, but why not try to build something substantial?”