Neither Big Fish Games nor the company that owns it, Aristocrat Technologies, responded to requests to comment for this article. Stanford also wants to prevent game operators from ignoring players’ requests to take a break from the app or block their credit card accounts - requests Kelly said she made several times, only to get pushback from a Big Fish employee known as a “VIP host.“ That’s something lawyers for Kelly allege Big Fish did last fall. He said one possible protection would be to ban a company from asking players to accept new terms of service agreements that would prevent them from joining a class-action lawsuit. Derek Stanford, D-Bothell, plans to introduce legislation early next week that would seek to ban some of the more abusive practices that he said came to light in the Big Fish Casino lawsuit. In response, Washington state lawmakers are seeking new ways of regulating online operations like Big Fish Casino, as well as other types of games that entice players to make in-app purchases using real-world money. Interrante estimated she spent “at least $200,000” inside the digital casino. “I could talk to people, and they couldn’t see me crying on the inside,” reads a court declaration from longtime player Jill Interrante, who said she first downloaded the app to help fill a void when her marriage was ending. Other users besides Kelly have filed court declarations about how they became addicted to the app, fueled in part by the game’s social aspect, which allows them to interact with other players. But court proceedings continue around certain aspects of the case. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled against Big Fish Games, agreeing that the company’s practices as alleged in the lawsuit amount to unlawful gambling under Washington law. Under Washington state law, players caught up in illegal gambling operations are allowed to recover the money they’ve lost, which is the remedy Kelly and other plaintiffs seek.

District Court for Western Washington - alleging that the company is engaging in illegal online gambling.

And Kelly is now part of a class-action lawsuit - filed in U.S. “My reality became the app.”īig Fish Games, the company that operates Big Fish Casino, is headquartered in Seattle. “I literally lost my sense of reality,” Kelly wrote. To fund her addiction, she drained her husband’s 401(k) retirement savings account and took out two home equity loans, she told the commissioners.

Compulsive gambling lawsuit casino