Card Shufflers Antitrust Class Action
The class for this action is all persons or entities who directly bought or leased automatic card shufflers in the US, its territories, and Washington, DC from any of the defendants in this case or their predecessors, subsidiaries, or affiliates, between April 1, 2009 and the present.
The complaint alleges that the defendant companies have created a 100% monopoly, which “has been achieved as the result of purposeful abuse of the patent system and the judicial process by Bally and SGC and their predecessor entities. For more than a decade, Defendants have filed sham patent infringement lawsuits against every potential competitor that has marketed competitive card shufflers to casinos in the United States, leaving United States casinos and other direct purchasers with essentially no choice in automatic shufflers since at least 2009.”
The complaint in Illinois federal court alleges Scientific Games, SHFL Entertainment and Bally Technologies, who manufacture and sell fully automated card shufflers under the Shuffle Master, DeckMate and Bally names, have fraudulently procured patents and then asserted those patents in “sham lawsuits” against competitors, which has effectively kept competing entities out of the market while causing proposed class members to pay more for the products than they otherwise would have in a competitive market. According to the complaint, the market for automated card shufflers and related services is valued at roughly $100 million per year. The defendants, the plaintiff alleges, “now control virtually 100% of that market as a result of their misconduct.”
- Current Settlement Total: TBD
- Covered Period: April 1, 2009 – present
- Filing Deadline: TBD
- Contact DSG
View the class action summary in a PDF.