Jumbo Technology Suing Evolution for Patent Infringement

Taiwanese gaming equipment manufacturer Jumbo Technology has filed a lawsuit against Evolution in the District Court of Delaware. They are claiming that the live casino giant’s Lightning Roulette, and related lightning multiplier games infringe their patented ‘dynamic raised odds’ feature.

The lawsuit

At the centre of the lawsuit is US Patent No. 9,646,459, (the patent) granted to Jumbo in 2017.

The patent is described as an incentive apparatus for gambling games – the incentive being dynamically raised payouts from the norm, adding an element of excitement to the game. Jumbo use this patented feature on a number of their console games, including roulette, sic bo and baccarat terminals.

Playing their J-Multi Roulette terminal players can change the Straight Up bet payout setting from Normal Pay 35:1, to Random Pay, potentially boosting payouts to 119:1.

Jumbo wrote to Evolution in 2024, advising them of their belief that the Lightning multiplier games infringed the patent. These games have been offered for some time in regulated US iGaming states including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan  Delaware, West Virginia and Connecticut.

Jumbo offered Evolution what they called a reasonable license fee to continue using the Lightning multiplier concept in games played across the US.

Evolution politely declined the license offer and continued with business as usual.

Which gets us to where things stand now. A complaint filed by Jumbo’s attorneys in the US District Court of Delaware, alleging Evolution have been, “wilful, deliberate, and intentional” in their infringement and refusal to alter their games or pay a license fee. The complaint further reads:

“The result of the innovation claimed in the ‘459 Patent is that players are more engaged, play longer, and derive more enjoyment from a system that converts the standard, static game structure to an exciting, dynamic, and less predictable game.

In the online gambling context, the addition of a dynamic raised odds calculation element has transformed games from the traditional model that seeks to imitate physical gaming to a system that adds excitement and unpredictability to the outcome.”

There will be few arguments that random payout multipliers add to games’ excitement. Evolution’s Lightning games have been a runaway success in the US and other markets in which they’re offered. Their success has inspired similar random multiplier games from all major live games providers.

Whether Jumbo can successfully claim patentable ownership over the changing of regular game payouts is a very different matter.

Evolution would be well aware of this. Only last year they tried to sue Light & Wonder in a US court, alleging L&W’s RouletteX, which offered similar random multiplied payouts, infringed (ironically) Lightning Roulette patents.

A federal judge dismissed Evolution’s lawsuit, ruling that the patents were invalid because they covered abstract ideas rather than specific, patentable innovations.

Jumbo are going to need some sort of legal team to get a win in their case.