Evan Thomas

Post-pitch story

Evan Thomas and Troy Pettie started Guru Games while they were students at UNLV, with a pitch built for Las Vegas: a skill-based casino game called Line 'Em Up that mixed Bejeweled-style puzzles with a slot machine, aimed at pulling younger players onto casino floors. After the show they went through the Iron Yard Ventures accelerator in Las Vegas, showed the game at the Global Gaming Expo, and landed meetings with Caesars and other operators. They also won a U.S. patent for their game mechanic, granted in February 2019. What they didn't get was a breakthrough. There's no sign Line 'Em Up ever rolled out widely in casinos, and the company appears to have scaled way down — its public listing now shows just one remaining team member, co-founder Troy Pettie, with former staff having moved on to other gaming companies. (Note: a Swedish studio also called Guru Games, bought by Thunderful Group in 2020, is a completely different company.) Skill-based gambling has been a tough sell across the industry, with regulators and casinos slow to embrace it, so Guru Games was early to a market that has never quite arrived. The company still exists on paper, but for now this looks like a story that stalled after a promising start. If you know more, send us a tip.