PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker got a win in Illinois when lawsuits from two players trying to recover losses from the sites were dismissed in Illinois.
Illinois residents Kelly Sonnenberg and Judy Fahrner filed the suits in 2012 under the state’s Illinois Loss Recovery Act (ILRA). The statute—which dates to the 19th century—allows individuals to collect “illegal gambling” losses suffered by third parties, provided those gamblers haven’t filed their own claims within six months of suffering their losses.
The suits were initially dismissed for lack of cause in March 2014, but the plaintiffs were able to refile the suits. That refiling essentially just added the names of players who had gambled on the sites.
Judge David Herndon then dismissed the updated suits, saying the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that PokerStars and Full Tilt had ‘won’ the losses at the center of the suits. Legal precedent in the state showed that the keeper of a gambling house is not responsible for losses between one player and another, the judge said.
The two sites collect “rakes” of pots, not the actual winnings, the judge ruled.
The judge also noted that the plaintiffs had filed their claims more than a year after PokerStars and Full Tilt had left the U.S. market, missing their window of opportunity.
Attorney Jeff Ifrah, who represented the poker companies in the suits, told CalvinAyre.com that the ruling was “a major victory for PokerStars and instructive for other online gambling providers facing similar attacks from plaintiffs seeking unjust windfalls.”
