A lawsuit against Machine Zone, developers of the popular Game of War: Fire Age, was thrown out of court by a federal judge in Illinois week that is late last.

Judge Robert Dow rejected a claim that the popular smartphone game violates the Illinois Loss Recovery Act as well as the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.

Game of War is a massive multi-player online game (MMO), in which players build and train armies and form alliances as they strive to prosper in an imaginary geopolitical landscape.

It’s free to play, but users have the ability to purchase ‘virtual gold’ in purchase to aid their development within the game.

For instance, $4.99 will buy you 1,200 pieces of the worthless digital money, while $99.99 will get you 20,000 pieces. It also contains a virtual casino,’ in which players can ‘wager’ virtual money, hoping to win helpful minerals to aid their quest, such as for instance lumber, stone and more silver, all ‘virtual,’ of program.

Plaintiff Mihajlo Ristic said he began Game that is playing of in 2014. Within a six-month period he spent at the very least $50, he says, or ‘perhaps significantly more than $500,’ on these ‘wagers.’ Therefore, Machine Zone illegally operated a gambling device and engaged in unfair conduct by breaking state gambling legislation, according to Ristic.

Bizarre Illinois Gambling Statue Doesn’t Wash

This is not the very first time Game of War has faced legal action. a civil lawsuit in Maryland last year accused the game of being an illegal ‘slot machine or device.’ The judge for the reason that full case scoffed during the ‘hodgepodge of hollow claims’ that lacked ‘allegations of real-world harms or accidents’ and which had no claim to any style of payment in ‘a real-world court.’

But Illinois has turned into a hotbed of bizarre gambling recovery claims on the couple that is past of. The reason for here is the rediscovery of this aforementioned Loss Recovery Act, an antiquated claw-back statute

The law states that any Illinois gambler who loses $50 or more has the best to sue the winner to have the money back. Bizarrely, it also states that should the gambler that is losing sue the winner within sixth months, then ‘any person’ is permitted to sue the winner, for approximately three times the amount.

It ended up being under this legal premise that two moms Kelly Sonnenberg and Judy Fahrner brought a case in August 2012 against Amaya, seeking to reclaim money lost by their sons and ‘other gamblers’ on PokerStars and Full Tilt before they ceased US operations in 2011.

Yes, the moms were attempting their luck. They were wanting to sue to reclaim the cash of any gambler in Illinois whom ever lost a penny at PokerStars or Full Tilt, in order to grossly enrich themselves.

Parallels to Amaya Case

Fortunately, these were laughed out of court. The judge made the point that is obvious PokerStars et al were simply charging a rake, and so could not be perceived as a ‘winner,’ or even as a ‘gambler.’

Judge Dow referred to the Amaya situation in his dismissal of the claim against Game of War this week. Machine Zone is not a gambler, since no amount of Machine Zone’s earned money ever depended on the results of the game, he said.

Nor did the overall game violate gambling laws, or impose ‘a lack of meaningful choice or an unreasonable burden.’ Neither did it cause significant, unavoidable harm.

In a nutshell, the biggest and, in reality, only ‘gamble’ this plaintiff made would be to file the way it is in the first spot.