PokerStars has seen one count of a class action lawsuit filed against it seeking to recoup gambling losses dismissed as a federal judge ruled that the gambling site is not responsible for who wins or loses poker games on its sites.
U.S. District Court Judge David R. Herndon, ruling from the bench for the Southern District of Illinois, said that PokerStars is “more akin to a third party service provider that provides a forum for others to play the game and does not have a stake in how the game is decided,” according to Legal News Wire.
“This is a major victory for PokerStars and instructive for other online gaming providers facing similar attacks from plaintiffs seeking unjust windfalls,” said Jeff Ifrah, the founder of Ifrah Law, which is representing PokerStars in a press release. “In our very first pleading, we clearly proved that the plaintiff’s case lacked any merit.”
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2012.
In June, PokerStars Chairman Mark Scheinberg, agreed to pay $50 million to federal prosecutors stemming from a 2011 money laundering lawsuit. PokerStars also agreed to pay $731 million to settle a lawsuit brought on by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Both suits stemmed from the U.S. Department of Justice’s move to shutter offshore gambling sites operating illegally in the U.S. in April 2011.
The class action suit arose when an Illinois resident, seeking to recoup her son’s losses at the site, filed suit saying PokerStars illegally targeted Illinois residents. The class action suit seeks to recover all Illinois residents’ losses on PokerStars.
The suit seeks to recover gambling losses under the Illinois Loss Recovery Act, which allows individuals to collect losses on behalf of third parties, provided those third parties fail to make their own claim within six months of losing the wager, the wire service reported.
The courts, however, have ruled that the losses were to the winner of the game, not the “keeper of the house.”
“PokerStars Group acted as a conduit for transmission of the prize money to the winner and it did not risk any of its money in producing the prize money to the winner,” Herndon said in his ruling.
Herndon also found that Sonnenberg had not sufficiently detailed a “loser” or a “loss.”
“This was an incredibly high-stakes case,” said Ifrah Law attorney Rachel Hirsch to the wire service. “As the Illinois Loss Recovery Act permits an award of triple the amount of losses, millions of dollars were at stake. This win will protect other online gaming providers from similar meritless actions.”
Herndon gave lawyers for players until April 12 to file an amended complaint.
