Facebook, Google, and Apple Face Legal Battle Over Social Casino Games

Facebook, Google, and Apple are facing a class-action lawsuit over their social casino game services. The lawsuit alleges that the tech giants are involved in an “illegal gambling conspiracy” through their social casino game services. The social casino games mimic real casino games and charge players real money to purchase play chips. The lawsuit argues that social casinos are extraordinarily profitable and highly addictive, leveraging big data and social network pressures to target consumers prone to predictive behaviors.

Worldwide, players spent more than $6 billion on these play chips last year. Out of the top 12 earners on Facebook, nine of them are social casinos. The Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled nearly four years ago that virtual chips have inherent value and can be considered part of gambling.

This ruling has significant implications for the ongoing lawsuit, as it challenges the traditional legal stance that gambling must entail a risk to win something of value. The real motivation behind this new legal pressure is that the companies offering these services operate with the same strategy to attract new players and to keep them playing, often more than what they can afford to. Fancy graphics and behavioural prompts leave many players with a compulsion that is hard to get rid of.