Apple and Google targets in federal class action suit tied to sweepstakes casinos
The brief glimmer of seemingly good news for the social/sweepstakes casino operators didn’t last long.
Mere days after the plaintiffs in a New Jersey lawsuit dropped their case against four sweeps sites as well as Google and Apple, those plaintiffs (along with one additional party) launched a federal class action suit along the same lines against the same tech giants.
Notably, however, none of the sweepstakes operators were named as defendants this time. So… a fraction of that glimmer of good news remains?
The new suit, filed Friday in United States District Court in New Jersey, pits plaintiffs Julian Bargo of New Jersey and Lamar Prater of New York (both involved in the previous suit) as well as Rebecca Platt of New York against Apple Inc, Apple Payments Inc, Google LLC and Google Payment Corp. It seeks “to recover money lost to illegal gambling, for injunctive relief and for other appropriate relief, from an illegal interstate gambling enterprise facilitated by the defendants and in which they materially participate.”
In short, the lawsuit asserts that sweepstakes casinos are illegal – a matter of much debate, although they have not been explicitly regulated and declared legal in the US. The suit contends Apple and Google are liable for making the apps available on their phones and for processing payments to and from the casino apps.
Meet the new suit, similar to the old suit
The federal class action suit filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act strongly resembles the recently withdrawn suit, other than High 5 Casino, McLuck, Wow Vegas and CrownCoins Casino each being named as defendants the first time around whereas various operators are mentioned but not sued in the new complaint.
The complaint accuses the defendants of misconduct by distributing the sweepstakes casino apps, taking a percentage of purchases made on the apps, acting as payment processors and marketing to users with advertising designed to find “vulnerable” potential customers.
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