DoubleU Games downplays illegal gambling fears
Korean developer says it is confident of triumphing against new lawsuits following recent Court of Appeals ruling
DoubleU Games has downplayed the potential impact to its business from the recent US Court of Appeals ruling that Big Fish Casino was illegal gambling.
The ruling, handed down in early April, said Big Fish offered illegal gambling because its virtual chips “extended the privilege of playing Big Fish Casino,” meaning they fell under the Washington state law’s definition of a “thing of value.”
Playtika, DoubleU, High5 and Huuuge Casino have all since been hit with similar lawsuits from customers alleging they lost money to the firms through illegal gambling.
However, in a statement released on Sunday, DoubleU said it was confident of winning the case brought against it because its users could get virtual coins for free and therefore play the game for free.
The firm said: “We can provide sufficient and concrete grounds about free-to-play feature include; (1) free coins are provided on a daily basis, (2) most users are playing the game free of charge every day, (3) even if users have spent all of their virtual coins after the payment, the percentage of users who continue to play for free with the provided free coin is very high.
“We will actively claim that the virtual coin in the game cannot be a “thing of value” and we are confident of winning the case.”
As for the Big Fish case, Double noted the ruling was “considerably unusual” given recent case law, and was still subject to appeal by Churchill Downs.
DoubleU also specified the outcome of the final judgment will be confined to just Washington, not across the United States.
The firm, now the third largest developer in the industry following the acquisition of DoubleDown, has seen its share price dip by almost 20% since the start of April.