Washington-based Big Fish Games will pay $155 million in a settlement of a class action lawsuit that was brought against the company by players of an online social game that was later ruled to be illegal gambling.
The settlement will be paid by the former and current owner of Big Fish Games: Churchill Downs and Aristocrat Technologies. Churchill Downs will pay $124 million and Aristocrat will pay $31 million.
In 2015 Cheryl Kater and several other parties sued the parent company of Big Fish, Churchill Downs. Kater’s suit alleged that Big Fish violated state law against gambling because the chips it used in its supposedly free Big Fish Casino was “something of value.”
The case was dismissed the following year by a U.S. District Court, but in 2018 a federal appeals court reversed that and ruled that Big Fish Casino was online gambling, and therefore illegal in Washington.
How much each participant in the class action suit will be based on how much money each person lost while playing Big Fish Casino and several other related games that offer online forms of slots, blackjack and roulette and use virtual chips.
As part of the settlement Big Fish agreed to “establish a voluntary self-exclusion policy that will allow players to exclude themselves from further gameplay, make available resources related to video game behavior disorders, and change the game mechanics of its apps so players who run out of virtual chips can continue on in the game they are playing without buying chips.”
