Light & Wonder to cease ‘commercialising’ its Jewel of the Dragon slot and offer replacements
With further litigation on the table in the US District Court of Nevada from Aristocrat, Light & Wonder has taken the decision to ‘voluntarily stop commercialising’ and replace its Jewel of the Dragon slot machine.
On March 14, 2025, Aristocrat filed a second amended complaint with the District Court of Nevada, adding a trade secret misappropriation claim against Jewel of the Dragon. The initial claims concerning Jewel of the Dragon did not include a claim for trade secret misappropriation. Light & Wonder intends to respond to the second amended complaint by April 11, 2025.
A spokesperson for Light & Wonder said: “In light of this claim, we made the decision to voluntarily stop commercialising and offer to replace Jewel of the Dragon to minimize any confusion and potential disruption to our customers. We are seeking to ensure our customers are not affected by the ongoing legal process. The success we had in rapidly replacing the Dragon Train units, and the strong game performance of our broader portfolio, give us confidence that this is the best course of action for our customers at this point as we continue to build great games. For context, Jewel of the Dragon’sPremium installed base footprint is less than one per cent of the total Premium installed base in North America, with approximately 150 premium leased units.”
On March 14, 2025, Aristocrat filed a second amended complaint with the District Court of Nevada, adding a trade secret misappropriation claim against Jewel of the Dragon. The initial claims concerning Jewel of the Dragon did not include a claim for trade secret misappropriation. We intend to respond to the second amended complaint by April 11, 2025.
Light & Wonder stated: “After Aristocrat added the trade secret claim on Jewel of the Dragon, we identified certain Aristocrat PAR sheets dated 2015 that appear to have been available to certain members of the Jewel of the Dragon development team.”
PAR sheets are used by suppliers to describe the performance characteristics and settings of a slot machine and contain information about the game’s payout structure and odds and some of the mechanics of how the machine operates. These PAR sheets have been historically provided to customers to allow them to meet regulatory requirements and to understand their own exposure as it relates to the likelihood of large but infrequent award amounts. Because PAR sheets have been so widely distributed, it has historically been common for PAR sheets from industry players, including L&W, to end up in the hands of competitors.
Light & Wonder added: “Given our identification of these historical Aristocrat PAR sheets, we are expanding the scope of the review we conducted following the preliminary injunction to include all hold and spin games released before mid-2021. We have no reason to believe that the expanded review covering all hold and spin games released before mid-2021 will identify evidence of similar issues. The scope of our initial review included a number of later versions of games first released before mid-2021. None of those later versions had evidence of similar issues, making it unlikely that earlier versions would. Furthermore, all of these games have been on the market for a minimum of three years. Separately, no one has made a claim that any of these games incorporates confidential trade secrets of any other party. We plan to give an update to the market on this review as part of our Q1 2025 results briefing.
In the latest complaint, Aristocrat has also raised new issues, which Light & wonder said it would ‘vigorously defend against.’
Light & Wonder explained: “There are many elements of Dragon Train that made it successful and that are not contested by Aristocrat. We have structured development of new games to solve the issue raised by Emma Charles’ use of certain math in the design ofDragon Train. We followed that process with our new social game,Dragon Train Grand Central. We provided the math to Aristocrat in advance of the launch of the game. Aristocrat has made no claim with respect to theDragon Train Grand Central math, and we are confident the same will be true for ourDragon Train replacement land-based game that is in development.”
Aristocrat originally made claims with respect to two Light &Wonder games in its complaint filed on February 26, 2024, a trade secret misappropriation claim on Dragon Train and trade dress, copyright infringement and related claims on Jewel of the Dragon.
On September 23, 2024, the Nevada court granted a preliminary injunction on Dragon Train games. Light & Wonder complied with that order on a global basis, including converting out approximately 95 per cent of the 2,200 units from our North American gaming operations fleet within the 30-day time period for compliance.
