Light & Wonder drops 20% on fears Aristocrat to sue over second slot (USA)
By Zak Thomas-Akoo – 31 Mar, 2025
The analysts said the share price decline has been driven by fears that a second Light & Wonder game, Jewel of the Dragon, could be subject to ongoing trademark misappropriation and copyright infringement litigation involving Dragon Train.
It follows the US land-based and iGaming supplier being ordered by a Nevada District Court to cease profiting off its Dragon Train game in September last year, which resulted in a significant share price decline.
After speaking to management, the analysts said they believed there had been “additional legal communication” regarding Jewel of the Dragon, which led Light & Wonder to pre-emptively approach the issue.
In a legal filing submitted earlier in the month, Aristocrat said Light & Wonder has not produced an adequate list of games that former employee Emma Charles, whose work is at the centre of the lawsuit, worked on.
The filing said: “L&W, which is headquartered in Nevada, has committed both domestic acts of misappropriation (e.g., storing stolen Aristocrat game math on US servers and using Aristocrat trade secrets in the US and domestic acts in furtherance of misappropriation elsewhere (e.g., L&W’s senior management in the US overseeing the development of Dragon Train).
“And under the Copyright Act, Aristocrat is “entitled to recover damages flowing from exploitation abroad of the domestic acts of infringement committed by” L&W, including its development of Jewel of the Dragon (the game accused of infringing Aristocrat’s copyrighted works) in the US.”
