Las Vegas-based gaming equipment manufacturer Light & Wonder and Aristocrat Leisure Ltd. in Australia on Sunday announced a $127.5 million settlement in an ongoing intellectual property dispute and the Las Vegas company will remove all Dragon Train and Jewel of the Dragon games from the market.
The settlement ends a legal case that began in February 2024 when Aristocrat filed a lawsuit in US District Court in Nevada accusing Light & Wonder of producing “a cheap knockoff” of its Dragon Link and Lightning Link slots.
Under the settlement, Light & Wonder will pay Aristocrat A$190 million (US$127.5 million) and admit that it used Aristocrat’s mathematical information in connection with the development of both Dragon Train and Jewel of the Dragon.
“Light & Wonder is pleased to resolve this matter and move forward,” Light & Wonder CEO Matt Wilson said in a statement released Sunday afternoon.
“We are committed to doing business the right way — to respect the intellectual property rights of our competitors while protecting our own rights. This matter arose when a former employee inappropriately used certain Aristocrat math without our knowledge and in direct violation of our policies. When we discovered it, we took immediate action and have since implemented similar issues to protect future settlements. our customers, employees and shareholders and allow us to continue our focus on developing and deliver the market-leading content our customers expect – without distraction or disruption.”
Aristocratic statement
Aristocrat CEO and CEO Trevor Croker said his company “welcomes fair competition, but will always robustly defend and enforce its intellectual property rights.
“As an ideas and innovation company, our intellectual property is critical to our continued success,” Croker said in a statement. “We are committed to protecting the amazing work of our dedicated creative and technical teams. We welcome this positive outcome, which includes significant financial compensation and follows the decisive action we took to ensure the preservation of Aristocrat’s valuable intellectual property. This decisive action included securing a preliminary injunction, which the court for Dragon2 in September 2004 recognized that the court could develop on September 20. Train using Aristocrat’s valuable trade secrets and without investing corresponding time and money.”
Light & Wonder has agreed not to use Aristocrat’s mathematical information and copyrighted works at issue in the dispute, and to permanently destroy all documents reflecting this information.
In its five-count lawsuit filed on February 26, Aristocrat says Light & Wonder produced games similar to its Dragon Link and Lightning Link slots. The company said former Aristocrat game developers Emma Charles and Lloyd Sefton, who joined Light & Wonder in 2021, worked on their new company’s Jewel of the Dragon and Dragon Train products.
At tribal casinos
Dragon Train was first released in Australia in 2023 and in the United States in March 2024. It was distributed in core casinos in California, Kansas and Minnesota.
When District Judge Gloria Navarro first ordered Light & Wonder’s game to be removed in September 2024, Wilson said he disagreed with the ruling, but complied.
Although Light & Wonder’s stock price fell after the order was placed, the company said it suffered no long-term damage as customers replaced the Dragon Train and Jewel of the Dragon machines with other Light & Wonder games.
“We have approximately 33,000 leased units installed in the market, and Dragon Train represented a mid-single digit percentage of the install base, or roughly 2,200 units,” Wilson said at the time.
He added that Charles and Sefton were no longer with the company.
Light & Wonder was delisted from the Nasdaq exchange last year, but is now part of the Australian Securities Exchange.
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