Federal lawsuit claims Apple hosts ‘illegal social casinos’
| By Richard Mulligan
Technology giant Apple has been accused of hosting and facilitating dozens of illegal social casinos in a new lawsuit that has been lodged in a US District Court.
The filing in the Northern District of California claims that Apple participates in “an illegal internet gambling enterprise” by distributing social games through its App Store that allow virtual chips to be bought.
Facebook and Google are also mentioned alongside Apple in the filing, which alleges that the platforms, as well as social casino companies, have “found a way to smuggle slot machines into the homes of consumers nationwide” by “leveraging an ‘innocuous-sounding’ free-to-play model”. It adds that Apple takes a 30% cut of in-app purchases.