“I went to Sameer and I said, I think you’ve solved the riddle,’” O’Reilly says. “We can create a gaming vertical unlike any out there.”
Like a lot of startups these days, Evenplay relies on artificial intelligence, or AI. In addition to built-in player recognition technology, the system has the tools to assess a player’s skill. Every user gets 10 free swings before they are required to play for money. As those shots are struck, AI takes stock of how good the player is (the golf-simulator equivalent of a handicap) and generates challenges and odds to match. The better the player, the tougher the target.
Could a player sandbag the system? He or she could try. But Evenplay has safeguards, Gupta says. For starters, $20 is the most you can risk on any shot, and you can only play the maximum once the system has gotten a chance to know you. When you’re playing against the house, the target changes from shot to shot.
“You might get the advantage on us once early on,” Gupta says. “But let’s say you’re a scratch golfer and you intentionally hosel a few. The first time you hit a good shot, the system is going to know and adjust. We’re Vegas. We understand edge players.”
Just as the house doesn’t want to get hustled, players need to feel like they’re getting a fair shake. (The same psychology that might prevent an avid blackjack player from playing an online version of the game might also make a golfer wary of a simulated challenge with money at stake) To that end, O’Reilly says, Evenplay is designed to “meet players where they are” with challenges customized to their skill. The decision to risk money is up to the user.
“It’s your choice as to whether the challenge is believable or achievable,” O’Reilly says.
Evenplay comes at a time of propulsive change in golf, driven partly by tech-infused, non-traditional forms of the game. The recreational golf sector, having boomed since Covid, has also shown a growing interest in such off-course golf experiences as driving ranges, simulators, and golf-entertainment venues. Of the 47 million people who played some form of golf in the U.S. in 2024, some 19 million did so exclusively off the course, a roughly 20-percent jump from the year before, based on data from the National Golf Foundation. Coupled with the rise of legalized gambling and daily fantasy sports, those trends would seem to suggest a business opportunity. But that doesn’t make a concept like Evenplay a gimme. (PinSeeker, for its part, was acquired last March by Revelyst, the parent company of Bushnell and Foresight Sports; a PinSeeker representative says its gaming platform has seen significant growth in bars and commercial establishments, with play seen in more than 300 locations, and that its pays out millions in prizes annually).
As some experts see it, the challenges are steep.
“I think it’s a tough hill to climb to create a successful business around cash money games in the golf-simulator space,” says Lincoln Silver, a golf industry veteran and former vice president of Topgolf Callaway who is now an independent consultant. “You start with golfers, who represent a niche sport to begin with, and then you layer on golfers in a simulator environment and the low percentage of that small set who would be willing to put real money on the line with either people in the same room or people they don’t know in the simulator network globally. The numbers get very small, very quickly.”
Throw in other obstacles, Silver says — like getting people to create and fund an account when other bet-settling methods, such as Venmo and PayPal, already exist — and the pool shrinks even further.
“And because you are taking a small rake on each transaction, you need a huge and loyal audience willing to perform repeat transactions,” Silver says. “Then you need to split that rake with your simulator partners, so now the money gets diluted even more.”
On the flip side, Evenplay has found some bullish backers, including EP Golf Ventures, an investment partnership between the PGA of America and Elysian Park Ventures, the private investment arm affiliated with the owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers. A recent cash infusion from that outfit pushed Evenplay’s total money raised to more than $10 million. (Pinseeker, for its part, was acquired in March, 2024 by Revelyst, the parent company of Bushnell and Foresight Sports; a representative for PinSeeker said its money-game platform has a growing presence in bars and commercial facilities, with play in more than 300 locations around the U.S., and that it pays out millions of dollars annually).
Evenplay is currently operating in commercial establishments only, in the six states where it has been approved. But its plans call for expansion into the U.S. home-simulator market, and, eventually, overseas. The company also sees the potential for other golf-related uses for its technology, including instruction. When you’re getting a lesson, it’s hard to recreate the pressure of competing in an actual match. But imagine taking a lesson on a simulator with money on the line. That, the thinking goes, might do the trick.
And then there’s the market beyond golf. Evenplay hopes to apply its technology to other sports. For instance, bowling.
First, though, the company has gone all in on golf. As with every wager, time will tell if it pays off.
