Pokies developer Light & Wonder accuses rival Aristocrat of undermining its success

A fight over a pokies game ‘Dragon Train’ has seen newcomer Light & Wonder accuse its bigger rival and global leader Aristocrat of a long-running campaign of trying to undermine its success.

Light & Wonder executive chairman Jamie Odell and director Toni Korsanos are in the middle of a legal battle with their former employer and gaming giant Aristocrat. PictureL Britta Campion/The Australian

Upstart gaming machine developer Light & Wonder has accused its bigger rival Aristocrat Technologies of being “long on invective but short on facts” over its claims it pinched its trade secrets to create its new pokies game Dragon Train and argued a court dispute is part of a long-running campaign to undermine its success.

Light & Wonder, the $13bn game developer listed on the ASX and Nasdaq, has asserted that rather than Aristocrat competing fairly in the marketplace, Aristocrat has resorted to asserting baseless legal claims to handicap the launch of Dragon Train in the US after a hugely successful launch in Australia.

The game developer has also accused Aristocrat of not telling US courts about key details of the legal battle that has now erupted between the competitors, with Aristocrat’s claims of misappropriation of intellectual property and the Dragon Train game being a rip-off of Aristocrat’s own Dragon Link game totally baseless.

It says Aristocrat has resorted to “asserting baseless legal claims” and has denied that ex-Aristocrat game developers who now work for Light & Wonder shared any trade secrets with it that went into creating Dragon Train.

The use of Dragon images and wording was also common in the gaming world, Light & Wonder has argued, and that its arch rival Aristocrat is using the court system, both in the US and Australia, to go on a fishing expedition through its highly confidential documents and proprietary product design materials.

Light & Wonder’s executive chairman Jamie Odell and director Toni Korsanos. Picture: Britta Campion/The Australian

In court documents lodged in the US district court of Nevada Light & Wonder has set out its defence against a case launched by global pokies leader Aristocrat which is seeking a trove of internal Light & Wonder documents to discover the genesis of the creation and development of Dragon Train and its alleged use of Aristocrat intellectual property, copyright and trade secrets.

Light & Wonder has argued that Aristocrat’s move to demand documents from it, as revealed by The Australian this week, is part of a long-running campaign to hamstrung and the “latest instalment in its continued international campaign to undermine the release of Light & Wonder’s innovative competing products”.

The increasingly nasty legal battle between Light & Wonder and the nation’s largest pokies games developer, the $29.8bn Aristocrat, blew up last year when Light & Wonder launched its Dragon Train game, which quickly became the most popular new release in Australia.

Aristocrat believes that the game was a copy of its own successful pokies series Dragon Link. That belief was strengthened by the similarities of Dragon Train to its Dragon Link, in terms of functionality, game play, graphics and sounds.

But Aristocrat was particularly sceptical about the originality of Light & Wonder’s new game, as it had hired years earlier two game developers from Aristocrat that had worked on its Dragon Link game. Furthermore, Light & Wonder’s executive chairman Jamie Odell is the former boss of Aristocrat, the ex-CFO of Aristocrat, Toni Korsanos, is also on the Light & Wonder board as is another former Aristocrat director. The boss of Light & Wonder, Matt Wilson, is also a former Aristocrat executive.

The battle came to a head in February when Aristocrat launched legal action in the Nevada courts to demand internal documents from Light & Wonder that relate to the creation and development of its Dragon Train game. It sought expedited discovery of those internal Dragon Train documents.

In its court filing overnight, Light & Wonder has presented its arguments against allowing Aristocrat to gain access to the internal company documents.

“Aristocrat’s US lawsuit is the latest instalment in its continued international campaign to undermine the release of Light & Wonder’s innovative competing products,” Light & Wonder has argued.

“Rather than competing on an even playing field in the market, Aristocrat has contrived baseless legal claims in multiple jurisdictions coinciding with the release of Light & Wonder’s products in an effort to tarnish Light & Wonder’s product rollouts and drive customers away.”

It said the development of Dragon Train was the result of years of independent development and innovation, and that the two ex-Aristocrat game developers who worked on their Dragon Train game had left Aristocrat up to seven years earlier before starting at Light & Wonder.

Aristocrat has asked for similar internal documents through the Australian courts and is now asking for access to those documents in the US courts as Light & Wonder prepares to launch the game in the lucrative US gambling market.

Light & Wonder also argues Aristocrat should not be allowed to gain access to internal documents and fish for confidential information.

“Aristocrat’s request fails under any analysis of the surrounding circumstances. Specifically, Aristocrat has failed to demonstrate any legitimate urgency justifying the need for early discovery. And there is none.

“Aristocrat has been on notice of Dragon Train’s US release since October 2023; yet Aristocrat delayed filing this complaint, and when it finally did, Aristocrat did not seek a preliminary injunction. Instead, Aristocrat made an overbroad request for Light & Wonder’s confidential information to assess whether it even has a viable claim – all without even specifying the trade secrets that were allegedly misappropriated.

“Aristocrat’s request is a thinly-veiled effort to fish for support for its facially (grossly) defective trade secret allegations – just as it has been doing for months in Australia – before those claims face scrutiny under a motion to dismiss.”