Aristocrat makes the case longer, and L&W takes away the Jewel of the Dragon game.

Aristocrat makes the case longer, and L&W takes away the Jewel of the Dragon game.

 Light & Wonder (L&W) has chosen to take down its Jewel of the Dragon game after Aristocrat Technologies filed another lawsuit accusing it of stealing trade secrets.

 L&W said that Aristocrat Technologies has filed a second, amended lawsuit against it in Nevada in a case update that came out today, April 3.  Jewel of the Dragon is now being accused of stealing a trade secret, which is part of the lawsuit.  In its lawsuit in June 2024, Aristocrat Technologies first talked about that game, saying that it had made it before L&W.

 L&W has said that it has decided to "voluntarily" stop selling Jewel of the Dragon games and make new ones instead.  A check inside the company found "historical Aristocrat PAR sheets" being used.  PAR sheets list how a slot machine works and what settings it has, as well as the odds and payout systems.

 A judge in Nevada told L&W to stop selling its Dragon Train game after Aristocrat Technologies complained about it last year.  Their Dragon Link came out in 2017, and L&W's Dragon Train came out in the US in March 2024.

 Aristocrat Technologies has said that L&W's Dragon Train game is a lot like its own Dragon Link line.  In February of last year, the operators sued L&W, saying that it had stolen their intellectual property and copied their game features.

 Another thing Aristocrat Technologies said was that some of its former leaders who went to work for L&W were involved in making the alleged copy.

 L&W does something to lessen the
 After following the judge's order, L&W said it had changed 95% of its 2,200 Dragon Train games.  It also said that an internal review found that Emma Charles, the game's designer, had "breached her employment obligations" and was fired as a result.

 L&W said in its most recent update that Aristocrat Technologies had talked about an unreleased game in its amended lawsuit.  L&W said that an internal review of that game found that an early version of its math model "may have caused problems" with Aristocrat Technologies.

 "These problems were fixed in later versions, but we wanted to be safe, so we acted quickly before this amended complaint to stop working on the game any further and will not be releasing it," L&W said.

 Another change Aristocrat Technologies made to its complaint is that it now says L&W's replacement games for Dragon Train, like Dragon Train Grand Central, would gain from trade secret misappropriation even though Aristocrat Technologies wasn't involved in making the games.

 L&W said, "Aristocrat has not made any claims about the Dragon Train Grand Central maths, and we are sure that the same will be true for our Dragon Train replacement land-based game that is currently being made."

 On March 28, MacQuarie's industry analysts said of the case, "We think the main takeaway is that L&W's exposure with Jewel of the Dragon should be much lower than with Dragon Train."  At this point, we don't think this change will stop L&W from meeting its $1.4bn EBITDA goal by 2025.