SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
US-facing igaming supplier Evolution has filed a lawsuit against Light & Wonder (L&W) over an alleged intellectual property (IP) infringement.
The suit was filed in the Nevada District Court last week, with claims from Evolution that L&W made use of an IP related to the former’s Lightning Roulette title, accessing maths files to create “copycat” games.
Evolution Malta Limited, Evolution Gaming Malta Limited, Evolution Gaming Limited and SIA Evolution Latvia all appear as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, with L&W and LNW Gaming named as the defendants.
Evolution’s Lightning Roulette table game is a consistent performer in the US market, coming fifth in the most recent Eilers-Fantini report’s top games by GGR charts.
The dispute dates back to 2021, when Evolution approached Scientific Games, now LNW Gaming, to create a land-based version of the popular Roulette title.
Evolution suggests that it shared confidential data with the defendant during negotiations, including the mathematical make-up of its Lightning Roulette game.
While L&W and Evolution never agreed to make the land-based title, L&W released Roulette X shortly afterwards, as well as PowerX. Evolution considers both of these titles as copycat games.
The lawsuit stated: “LNW Gaming induced Evolution into providing L&W with Evolution’s trade secrets for Lightning Roulette … under the auspices of entering into a partnership for developing physical Lightning Roulette game tables, but turned around and used those trade secrets to develop its own copycat products knowing that its acts would harm Evolution.”
To resolve the issue, Evolution is hoping to gain compensation for damages and financial losses related to alleged actions taken by L&W, in addition to an injunction to prevent a similar situation from reoccuring.
This is the second lawsuit to be filed against L&W in 2024, with Aristocrat Gaming suggesting L&W’s ‘Jewel of the Dragon’ was a “cheap knock off” of its Dragon Link title in March.
