Another social casino gaming class actions was launched in Tacoma, Washington State, with the Game Show Network the most recent target of the same legal company that’s been launching class actions against similar operations from the state.
GSN offer free-to-play casino games in which virtual tokens are employed, issued as rewards by the operator or purchased for real money by the participant.
The most recent class actions has plaintiff Elise Bell in its centre, who claims that she lost $700 compensated for virtual tokens in playing with the GSN casino games.
The suits allege that the digital tokens rewarded to purchased by gamers represent “some thing of value,” a phrase which the litigants maintain places the social gaming action over the definition of gambling from Washington state.
From the Bell filing, the litigant asserts:
“Defendant’s online gambling games are prohibited gambling games as they’re online games at which players wager things of value (the tokens) and by an element of luck (e.g., by spinning an online slot machine) can obtain extra amusement and expand gameplay (by winning extra tokens). ”
The possibilities of success for the plaintiffs have been bolstered with a recent federal appeals court ruling which went against Big Fish Games and its own corporate parent Churchill Downs Inc. (see previous InfoPowa reports).
Thus, if a user runs out of virtual chips and wants to keep on playing with Big Fish Casino, she should purchase more chips to possesslsquo;the liberty of playing the match. Likewise, if a user wins chips, the user wins the chance of playing Big Fish Casino free of charge. In sum, those digital chips expand the chance of playing Big Fish Casino. ”
Churchill Downs Inc has petitioned for a review of this conclusion, and the situation is still continuing.
Social gaming apps typically use in-app nominal purchases to create earnings on “complimentary” games, but the lawsuit against GSN asserts the psychological effects of those transactions is very similar to that experienced in casinos.
“The difference involving micro-transaction based games of chance and games of opportunity found in casinos has generated governments across the world to intervene to limit their accessibility. Regrettably, such games have eluded regulation from the United States. As a result … Defendant’s online gambling games have thrived and tens of thousands of consumers have spent countless dollars unwittingly playing Defendant’s unlawful games of chance,” the Bell filing claims.
