Court Denies Aristocrat's Request to Access Information about Player Gambling Addiction

A class-action lawsuit in Australia is contending that Aristocrat, among others, has breached the country’s Gambling Act 2001Image Source: Shutterstock.com

Aristocrat’srequest from the Federal Court of Australiain Melbourneto access information about a group of plaintiffs who have filed a class-action lawsuit against the company, along with Product Madness and Big Fish Games, two of its subsidiaries, has been denied.

Plaintiffs to Retain their Privacy in Aristocrat Challenge over Social Casinos

Aristocrat has sought to get information about the gamblers’ gambling habits, and specifically, if they were gambling addicts. The court has denied this request on the basis that gamblers could not “self-diagnose” gambling addiction per se.

The plaintiff’s lawyers convinced the court that forcing the plaintiffs to self-diagnose their addiction could be potentially dangerous and have serious implicationsfor other cases, as well as undermine future challenges about legitimate issues, because someone may have been a gambling addict. The court accepted this argument.

The case against Aristocrat runs on familiar terms. The plaintiffs spent real money to access the company’s social casino apps, which emulate real online casino gameplay, which his prohibited under the terms of the cited law.

Aristocrat, though, maintained that such information was relevant to the case since it could determine the legal outcome. The court has acquiesced to an extent, but argued that at the time, examining the plaintiff’s mental healthor other medical conditions before mediation had been reached was, in fact, premature and prejudicial.

Previous Cases Have Created Legal Precedent

According to the plaintiffs, they were able to spend real money between December 22, 2017, and December 12, 2024, on a number of social casino games, including Big Fish Casino, EpicDiamond Slots, and Heart of Vegas.

Similar challenges have been filed against the companies in other countries, notably the United States. In one case, Big Fish’s owner, Aristocrat, and Churchill Downsagreed to settle challenges against them for a combined total of $155 million.

Recently, Aristocrat also suffered another legal setback with the company’s request for evidence rejected by a court in the case against Light & Wonder at the end of June.