Two of the US’ biggest igaming suppliers are embroiled in a legal battle over copycat game allegations after Evolution filed a lawsuit against Light & Wonder.
Filed with the Nevada District Court on Tuesday last week, Evolution claimed that L&W made use of IP related to the former’s Lightning Roulette title, accessing maths files to create “copycat” games.
Evolution’s Lightning Roulette table game is a consistent performer in the US market, coming fifth in the most recent Eilers-Fantini report’s top games by GGR charts.
Evolution Malta Limited, Evolution Gaming Malta Limited, Evolution Gaming Limited and SIA Evolution Latvia all appear as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, with L&W and LNW Gaming named as the defendants.
The dispute dates back to 2021, when Evolution approached Scientific Games, now LNW Gaming, to create a land-based version of the popular Roulette title.
Evolution suggests that it shared confidential data with the defendant during negotiations, including the mathematical make-up of its Lightning Roulette game.
While L&W and Evolution never agreed to make the land-based title, L&W released Roulette X shortly afterwards, as well as PowerX. Evolution considers both of these titles as copycat games.
The lawsuit stated: “LNW Gaming induced Evolution into providing L&W with Evolution’s trade secrets for Lightning Roulette … under the auspices of entering into a partnership for developing physical Lightning Roulette game tables, but turned around and used those trade secrets to develop its own copycat products knowing that its acts would harm Evolution.”
To resolve the issue, Evolution is hoping to gain compensation for damages and financial losses related to alleged actions taken by L&W, in addition to an injunction to prevent a similar situation from reoccuring.
Unfortunately for L&W, this is the second lawsuit to be filed against the supplier in 2024 as Aristocrat suggested L&W’s Jewel of the Dragon was a “cheap knock off” of its Dragon Link title in March.