News · Litigation
High 5 Games Hit With $24.9M Jury Verdict in Washington
A federal jury awarded a Washington class roughly $24.9 million against High 5 Games over virtual-chip losses, testing a legal theory now watched nationwide.
A federal jury in the Western District of Washington has ordered High 5 Games to pay roughly $24.9 million to a certified class of players, finding that the virtual chips used in its High 5 Casino app amount to a "thing of value" recoverable under the state's decades-old gambling-loss recovery law. The verdict, returned February 11, closes out nearly seven years of litigation in Wilson v. PTT, LLC d/b/a High 5 Games, LLC — and hands the broader social-casino industry its clearest signal yet of what a jury will do when this theory actually gets to trial.
What the jury found
The case, docketed as 3:18-cv-05275-TMC in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, was filed April 1, 2018, as a class action on behalf of Washington residents who spent money on virtual chips inside High 5 Casino, High 5 Games' social-casino app. The class argued that those chips — even though they carry no cash-out value and cannot be redeemed for money — function as a "thing of value" once a player must pay to keep playing after losing them. That framing matters because Washington's Recovery of Money Lost at Gambling Act (RMLGA) does not require a plaintiff to show the game was illegal gambling in the traditional sense. It lets someone who lost money betting on a "game of chance" recover it back, and the class's theory was that spending real money to replenish virtual chips lost to slot-style gameplay is functionally a bet on chance.
Alongside the RMLGA claim, the class pursued the case under Washington's Consumer Protection Act and a common-law unjust enrichment theory, arguing High 5 Games was retaining money it should not have kept once players lost their purchased chips. Those claims went to trial together, and the jury's verdict resolved all of them in the class's favor. The headline number is approximately $24.9 million; the case record indicates the recoverable figure after adjustments is closer to $17.7 million. Both figures are drawn from the same verdict — the difference reflects post-trial calculation, not a separate award. Adjustments of that kind are a routine part of converting a jury's verdict into an enforceable judgment — courts commonly apply statutory formulas, exclude certain class members, or net out amounts already resolved before entering final judgment — and this story does not characterize the specific mechanics behind the adjustment beyond what the case record itself reflects.
Seven years from filing to verdict
The gap between the 2018 filing and the 2025 verdict is itself part of the story. Class certification, discovery disputes, and dispositive motions in cases like this routinely take years before a jury ever hears the underlying facts, and Wilson followed that pattern closely. The case had to clear class certification — establishing that the named plaintiff's claims were typical of a broader group of Washington chip purchasers — before it could proceed as a class action at all, and defendants in these suits typically contest certification, standing, and the statutory reach of RMLGA itself at every stage available to them.
That long runway is a big part of why this verdict carries weight beyond Washington. Plenty of social-casino operators have faced RMLGA-style complaints over the past several years; comparatively few have actually gone the distance to a jury verdict on the merits. Settlements, dismissals, and pending motions make up most of the docket activity in this space. A resolved jury verdict — as opposed to an allegation still working through motion practice — is a different category of data point, and it is the first of its kind at this scale against a major social-casino operator under this specific statutory theory.
The "virtual chips as a thing of value" theory, explained
The legal mechanism at the center of this case is worth isolating because it is the piece other litigants are studying. Washington's RMLGA, like similar loss-recovery statutes on the books in a handful of other states, was not written with mobile app economies in mind. It targets money lost gambling on games of chance and allows the loser — or, in some versions, any third party — to sue to recover it. Social-casino operators have long argued their products fall outside that framework because the in-app currency has no redemption value; a player can lose every chip in the app and walk away with nothing owed and nothing owing.
The class's counter-argument, now validated by a jury, is that the redemption value of the chips themselves is not the relevant transaction. The relevant transaction is the purchase: a player pays real money for virtual chips, those chips get consumed by chance-based gameplay, and the player has to pay again to keep playing. Under that framing, the "thing of value" is the chip itself at the moment of purchase, not what it could theoretically be exchanged for later. A jury crediting that theory in a final verdict — rather than a court simply allowing the claim to survive a motion to dismiss — is a materially stronger data point for the plaintiffs' bar than any prior procedural ruling in this space.
Why this verdict matters beyond one case
Social-casino and sweepstakes-casino operators are currently facing loss-recovery suits in multiple states, generally built on statutes similar in structure to Washington's RMLGA — laws that let a gambling loser sue to get money back, often without requiring proof the underlying game met a formal legal definition of gambling. Those cases are, as of today, still working through the same stages Wilson spent seven years moving through: certification fights, motions to dismiss, and discovery. None of them has been resolved by this story, and this piece does not name or characterize any of them specifically.
What the Wilson verdict offers those pending cases is not a binding precedent outside Washington — a jury verdict in one federal district does not bind courts in another state applying a different statute. What it offers is proof of concept: a jury, presented with the "chips as a thing of value" theory and the underlying facts of how a social-casino app operates, returned a plaintiffs' verdict and a nine-figure-adjacent number. Defense counsel across the sector will be studying the trial record for what worked and what didn't. Plaintiffs' firms pursuing similar claims elsewhere will be citing the outcome, even where they can't cite it as binding law. For an industry that has largely litigated this theory in the abstract — at the motion-to-dismiss stage, before a jury ever weighs in — this is the first concrete look at how it plays with an actual jury.
It also changes the settlement calculus for operators facing similar complaints elsewhere. A pending loss-recovery suit that has not yet reached trial carries genuine uncertainty on both sides: plaintiffs don't know whether a jury will accept the "thing of value" framing, and defendants don't know whether a court will let the case reach a jury at all. A verdict like this one removes a piece of that uncertainty — not by resolving any other state's statute, but by showing that when the theory does reach a jury on a full trial record, a verdict against the operator is a realistic outcome, not just a theoretical one. That shift in perceived risk tends to move settlement negotiations in pending cases regardless of whether the parties ever cite the Washington verdict directly.
None of that changes what remains true about every other pending suit built on a similar theory: the claims within those cases are still allegations until a court or jury resolves them. The Wilson verdict is evidence about how the argument performs at trial. It is not evidence about how any other state's version of a loss-recovery statute will be interpreted, and it does not decide any other operator's liability.
How High 5 Games has responded
This story does not report a statement from High 5 Games regarding the verdict because none is included in the case record reviewed for this piece. SweepsMonitor is not characterizing the company's position, litigation strategy, or any post-trial steps it may or may not be taking. If High 5 Games or its counsel makes a public statement, files post-trial motions, or pursues an appeal, that development belongs in a future update to this record — not in speculation here.
What we know / What remains unclear
What we know: The case was filed April 1, 2018, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington as a class action against PTT, LLC d/b/a High 5 Games, LLC, docket 3:18-cv-05275-TMC. The class pursued claims under Washington's RMLGA, the state Consumer Protection Act, and unjust enrichment, arguing High 5 Casino's virtual chips constitute a recoverable thing of value. A jury returned a verdict in the class's favor on February 11, 2025, of approximately $24.9 million, with the case record indicating roughly $17.7 million after adjustments.
What remains unclear: This story does not report on whether High 5 Games has filed or intends to file post-trial motions or an appeal, what the final, fully adjusted judgment amount will be once any post-trial proceedings conclude, or how individual class members' recoveries will be calculated and distributed. Nothing in the source record reviewed for this story addresses those next steps, and SweepsMonitor is not speculating on them here.
What SweepsMonitor is watching next
We're tracking whether High 5 Games challenges the verdict through post-trial motions or an appeal to the Ninth Circuit, and whether the final judgment amount is confirmed at the roughly $17.7 million adjusted figure reflected in the current case record or changes further. We're also watching whether this verdict shows up in briefing or settlement posture in the other pending social-casino and sweepstakes loss-recovery suits working through courts in other states — not because a Washington jury verdict controls those cases as precedent, but because it is now a real-world data point about how the underlying theory performs in front of a jury rather than a judge alone on the papers.