{"id":4656,"date":"2019-02-24T08:05:52","date_gmt":"2019-02-24T13:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/?p=4656"},"modified":"2019-02-24T08:05:52","modified_gmt":"2019-02-24T13:05:52","slug":"big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Fish and Aristocrat Hit with Class Action Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

Social casino games provider Big Fish casino has been slapped with a fresh class-action lawsuit<\/a> for allegedly using gambling practices that are illegal in the state of Washington in their mobile gaming apps. Big Fish Casino and its owner, Aristocrat Leisure, the defendants confirmed the lawsuit in a brief statement where they also outlined their plans with regards to the lawsuit.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

Manasa Thimmegowda, the plaintiff, filed the lawsuit earlier this month with the US District Court for the Western District of Washington after she allegedly lost a whopping $3,000 in a single month for “regularly paying real money to purchase virtual chips” when she started playing on the social casino platform about two years ago. She is now seeking “to recover her losses and to obtain the appropriate relief” for herself as well as for “a class of similarly situated individuals.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

The offense, in this\ncase, is the fact that social casino games such as the ones that are offered by\nBig Fish Casino, do not allow players to\naccumulate more chips unless they win more by wagering the ones they already\nhave or by buying more of these virtual chips with real money. To lure new customers,\nthe social casino game providers always give out free virtual chips but once\nthese run out, the players will have no option but to buy more of them if they want\nto keep playing. This has been likened to online gambling which is still\nillegal in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n

According to the state’s gaming laws, gambling refers to “the staking or risking something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance or a future contingent event not under the person\u2019s control or influence, upon an agreement or understanding that the person or someone else will receive something of value in the event of a certain outcome.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

Furthermore, the lawsuit pointed out that the developers of the social casino games “have begun exploiting the same psychological triggers<\/a> as casino operators.” <\/p>\n\n\n

Previous Lawsuits<\/h2>\n\n\n

This is not the first time that Big Fish Casino and its owners are rubbing shoulders with the law. The operator’s woes began back in 2015 when one of its customers at the time alleged that she had purchased a $1,000 worth of virtual chips from the social gaming platform. The plaintiff’s case was thrown out in 2016 but after filing an appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the ruling which came early last year<\/a> fell in her favor when the court ruled that the Big Fish Games’ virtual casino chips could indeed be classified as “something of value”.<\/p>\n\n\n

Aristocrat Leisure, the current owner of Big Fish Casino, has\nsaid that it intends to vigorously fight against the idea that that the tokens\nor virtual chips offered in their games constitute gambling.<\/p>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social casino games provider Big Fish casino has been slapped with a fresh class-action lawsuit for allegedly using gambling practices that are illegal in the state of Washington in their mobile gaming apps. Big Fish Casino and its owner, Aristocrat Leisure, the defendants confirmed the lawsuit in a brief statement where they also outlined their […]","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[262,28,192,18,263,264],"class_list":["post-4656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legislation","tag-big-fish","tag-gambling","tag-law","tag-online-gambling","tag-social-casino","tag-washington"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBig Fish and Aristocrat Hit with Class Action Lawsuit<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Manasa Thimmegowda, the plaintiff, filed the lawsuit earlier this month after she allegedly lost a whopping $3,000 in a single month for "regularly paying real money to purchase virtual chips".\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Big Fish and Aristocrat Hit with Class Action Lawsuit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Manasa Thimmegowda, the plaintiff, filed the lawsuit earlier this month after she allegedly lost a whopping $3,000 in a single month for "regularly paying real money to purchase virtual chips".\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Real Money Gambling News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-02-24T13:05:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/02\/big-fish-free-coins.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"907\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jana Newland\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jana Newland\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Big Fish and Aristocrat Hit with Class Action Lawsuit","description":"Manasa Thimmegowda, the plaintiff, filed the lawsuit earlier this month after she allegedly lost a whopping $3,000 in a single month for \"regularly paying real money to purchase virtual chips\".","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Big Fish and Aristocrat Hit with Class Action Lawsuit","og_description":"Manasa Thimmegowda, the plaintiff, filed the lawsuit earlier this month after she allegedly lost a whopping $3,000 in a single month for \"regularly paying real money to purchase virtual chips\".","og_url":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/","og_site_name":"Real Money Gambling News","article_published_time":"2019-02-24T13:05:52+00:00","og_image":[{"width":907,"height":500,"url":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/02\/big-fish-free-coins.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jana Newland","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jana Newland","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/","url":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/","name":"Big Fish and Aristocrat Hit with Class Action Lawsuit","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/02\/big-fish-free-coins.jpg","datePublished":"2019-02-24T13:05:52+00:00","dateModified":"2019-02-24T13:05:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/c54c14a8d8232e90b4aaf8890f3bb7a9"},"description":"Manasa Thimmegowda, the plaintiff, filed the lawsuit earlier this month after she allegedly lost a whopping $3,000 in a single month for \"regularly paying real money to purchase virtual chips\".","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/02\/big-fish-free-coins.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/02\/big-fish-free-coins.jpg","width":907,"height":500,"caption":"big-fish-free-coins"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/big-fish-and-aristocrat-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Big Fish and Aristocrat Hit with Class Action Lawsuit"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/","name":"Real Money Gambling News","description":"Your #1 trusted source of independent gambling information.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/c54c14a8d8232e90b4aaf8890f3bb7a9","name":"Jana Newland","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c335c9edee67c72c3aade2172f4e8981?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c335c9edee67c72c3aade2172f4e8981?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jana Newland"},"description":"Jana has always wanted to be a journalist. She started as a child by writing lyrics for songs, but her desire to explore more serious texts has led her to us. As part of our team, Jana covers complex topics, helping us break them down in an easy-to-read form for our loyal audience. She still enjoys short-form writing, though, and she\u2019s an avid music fan when she\u2019s not producing quality reports to help us push our content strategy further and break the news in a timely and accurate matter.","url":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/author\/janaln\/"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}