The L&W trade suit has been sent to arbitration.

 The American Arbitration Association (AAA) has accepted the certification of 112 casinos as a class. This means that a class-action antitrust suit against gaming supplier Light & Wonder over its automated shufflers can now be decided by arbitration.

 The case was first filed in 2020 by the Tonkawa Indians, who run a casino for an Oklahoma tribal group. It says that L&W (then called Scientific Games) used false patent claims to get a near-monopoly on automated shufflers.  That made it hard for others to compete and let people charge too much for the tools.  At that time, Scientific Games started selling shufflers after buying the company that used to make the Shuffle Master.

 Because of the arbitration association's decision, the case will only need one judge and will not need to be filed 112 times.  Lawyers for L&W said that the arbitration agreements between each person are too different for the class to be recognised.

 But in a decision released on December 9 and made public on December 17, AAA arbitrator John Wilkinson said that the number of casinos joining the lawsuit is "far in excess of what is required" for a class action. He used court cases to support this point, saying that 40 members is the legal minimum for a class.

 L&W: Not all complaints are the same. Lawyers for L&W had earlier said that the arbitrator didn't follow past decisions and didn't think about the fact that each potential class member probably had different complaints.  Wilkinson didn't agree and said the differences were "narrow."

 A report from Reuters says that the casinos could be the first recognised antitrust arbitration class ever.

 Another action, also about automated shufflers, was filed in Chicago federal district court against L&W on behalf of more than 1,000 casinos. It is an antitrust case.  Those casinos didn't ask for arbitration; instead, they want to be recognised as a group in the regular courts.  Judge John Kness of the US District Court has not yet decided on the request for certification in that case.

 Light & Wonder is going to take Wilkinson's decision about class status all the way to the New York State Supreme Court.