“Game Over: The Epic Legal Battles of 2024 in the Gaming Industry”

While many casino and gaming equipment manufacturing firms in Southern Nevada enjoyed a lucrative 2024, a number found themselves in court more frequently than desired.

Moreover, with the justice system moving at a sluggish pace, they will likely remain entangled in the same cases into 2025.

One manufacturer received a directive from a judge to take 2,200 of its slot machines off the casino floors — which has led to a prospective class action from disgruntled investors concerned about the declining value of their shares in the company.

After Light & Wonder, headquartered in Las Vegas, was ordered in September by U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro to withdraw its Dragon Train-themed slots from casino floors in North America due to their resemblance to Australia-based Aristocrat Technologies Inc.’s Dragon Link and Lightning Link games, the company began substituting them with other Light & Wonder products.

During the company’s third-quarter earnings call with analysts, Light & Wonder CEO Matt Wilson expressed his appreciation for the support from casino operators that accepted the replacement machines, following Aristocrat’s lawsuit filed in February, alleging Light & Wonder of trade secret theft, copyright violation, trade dress infringement, and deceptive trade practices, claiming the Las Vegas firm produced “a cheap imitation” of its machines.

Although Wilson mentioned his disagreement with the ruling, considerable evidence exists to suggest otherwise, particularly since the Aristocrat designers responsible for their game subsequently joined Light & Wonder.

The Light & Wonder machines found their way to tribal casinos across California, Kansas, and Minnesota.

Having adhered to the judge’s order, Light & Wonder must now prepare for another potential legal challenge. The Rosen Law Firm from New York has commenced an investigation into possible securities claims on behalf of shareholders of Light & Wonder Inc., whose share price plummeted by 19.5 percent the day following the Review-Journal’s report on Navarro’s ruling.

Rosen attorney Phillip Kim is looking into investor losses and is gathering information from affected shareholders.

Wynn-Fontainebleau lawsuit

A different notable lawsuit initiated in 2024 involved two neighboring resorts on the Strip, the established Wynn Resorts Ltd., which operates Wynn Las Vegas and Encore Las Vegas, along with casinos in Boston and Macao, and the newly opened Fontainebleau Las Vegas.

In May, Clark County District Judge Mark Denton rejected a temporary injunction sought by Wynn against Fontainebleau to prevent them from hiring executives away from the Wynn properties.

The case has implications for the industry practice of requiring executives to sign noncompete agreements in their employment contracts.

Wynn launched its initial lawsuit against Fontainebleau at the end of February, and tensions rose rapidly between the two firms as Fontainebleau filed a counterclaim against Wynn.

In the counterclaim, Fontainebleau disclosed a text exchange between Fontainebleau CEO Jeff Soffer and Wynn CEO Craig Billings, which included a profanity-filled reply from Billings describing one of Soffer’s employees as “a rank amateur.”

“He hasn’t run a lemonade stand, much less a complex operation like you’re about to start,” Billings stated in one message. “He’s chaotically attempting to recruit individuals under contract, which is guaranteed to sway the town against you. Control him to mitigate the damage he’s doing to your enterprise.”

Once Denton decided against Wynn’s request for a temporary injunction, no additional court actions have been scheduled into 2025.

Steve Wynn litigation

Wynn Resorts also found itself in legal battles this year regarding Steve Wynn’s final days with the resort in 2018.

In January, Navarro affirmed a settlement reached in September 2023, concluding sexual harassment lawsuits filed against the company by nine anonymous women.

The judge’s ruling wrapped up a series of events that fundamentally altered Wynn Resorts, leading to the departures of several executives and a restructuring of the company’s board of directors.

The assembly of nine women, employees at Wynn and Encore Las Vegas’s salon, alleged they endured years of sexual harassment. They initiated a lawsuit against the company and Steve Wynn in 2019, a year after he departed the firm.

Court documents revealed the women provided detailed accounts of how Steve Wynn posed sexually charged personal queries, compelled them to massage him near his genitalia, and necessitated they perform services for him in private areas, including his office.

Steve Wynn has asserted that he has never harassed or sexually assaulted anyone.

Wynn was not the sole major Las Vegas corporation caught up in litigation.

Two MGM cases

MGM Resorts International was active in both proactive and defensive stances in separate legal matters.

Throughout 2024, MGM has been involved in the high-profile case connected to Scott Sibella, the former president of MGM and Resorts World Las Vegas, whose license was revoked in December by the Nevada Gaming Commission.

In January, Sibella pled guilty in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles for neglecting to file suspicious activity reports while working at MGM, pertaining to federal inquiries into the presence of illegal bookmakers in breach of anti-money laundering regulations. In a 17-page plea agreement, Sibella acknowledged awareness of California resident Wayne Nix’s illegal bookmaking operations, yet allowed him to continue gambling.

However, MGM also faced penalties.

Through non-prosecution accords with the Justice Department, MGM Grand and The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas were fined a total of $7.45 million as part of a money-laundering resolution for breaches of the Bank Secrecy Act.

While MGM was in a defensive position in that matter, it took an offensive approach in an April case against the Federal Trade Commission.

The corporation initiated a four-count lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., against the FTC and its chairwoman, Lina Khan, asserting that the agency infringed on the company’s Fifth Amendment right to due process during its investigation of the September 2023 cyberattack on the company.

The FTC countered two months later by demanding in U.S. District Court in Nevada for MGM to comply with a civil investigative demand for information.

MGM claimed that Khan ought to have withdrawn herself from the case due to a conflict of interest since she checked into the MGM Grand amid the cyberattack.

These cases are still in progress.

Discrimination lawsuit

Meanwhile, a lawsuit involving a Nevada regulator initiated in 2024 is set to continue into 2025.

Jaime Black, an employee of the Nevada Gaming Control Board since 2014 and appointed head of the Administration Division in June 2017, claimed in a lawsuit filed in September that she was coerced by Control Board member Brittnie Watkins to partake in discriminatory hiring practices, subsequently creating a hostile work atmosphere when she resisted.

In October, the Nevada Attorney General’s office, representing the Control Board, sought to dismiss the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Nevada.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at [email protected] or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.