Korean social casino game operator comments on ninth court of appeal decision

The series of class actions against social casino games developers which has followed the recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal finding that Big Fish Casino activity constitutes illegal online gambling in Washington State law (see previous reports) was addressed by Korean social casino games operator DoubleUGames over the weekend.

Our readers may recall that DoubleU acquired Doubledown Interact last year for $825 million in the largest acquisition yet by a Korean game company. Analysts have predicted that its sales and operating profits are likely to reach 116.9 billion won (US$109 million) and 31.8 billion won, respectively, in the first quarter of 2018.

In a statement over the weekend DoubleU characterised the Big Fish judgement as “quite unusual” but opined that it would have limited impact.

“We believe that the ruling of the Ninth Circuit of US Court of Appeals on Big Fish Casino is quite unusual,” the company said in a statement, citing four previous cases that all rejected gambling claims.

“We will work with the social casino industry to respond to this lawsuit as quickly as possible, and it will not have any financial or business impact on our company at this time.”

After initially retreating 10 percent, shares in the company have now recovered more than 5 percent.