Serious allegations have been made when it comes to Amazon – the e-commerce giant is allegedly involved in an illegal online gambling operation.

The lawsuit

The company allowed its users to download various social casino apps and play on them, which helped make billions of dollars of revenue.

Steven Horn from Nevada sued the company for making profits on social casino games. According to the class action complaint, the players can download casinos from Amazon for free. Even though they can’t earn any real money, they can buy virtual chips to play.

Virtual casinos and chips aren’t allowed in Washington, and the plaintiff is positive that the company is guilty. A similar situation occurred in August 2022 when International Game Technology and DoubleDown Interactive were selling illegal virtual chips, and they settled it for $415 million.

The lawsuit is supposed to make Amazon stop these games and return the earned money to its customers. There are 34 brands mentioned in the lawsuit, and among them are big industry names such as Jackpot Party, Monopoly Slots – Casino Games, Lotsa Slots, Jackpot Master, Black Diamond Casino, and Quick Hit Slots. On top of that, there is an illegal casino called Big Fish Casino.

Social casino apps and huge revenue

According to iGaming Business, the lawsuit says: “Social casinos are so lucrative because they mix the addictive aspects of traditional slot machines with the power of Amazon to leverage big data and social network pressures to identify, target, and exploit consumers prone to addictive behaviors.”

Social casino apps don’t have permission to operate on such high levels, and Amazon is directly involved in its distribution and sharing of revenue.

According to Statista’s research, only in 2020 about $6 billion was spent on gambling. It is stated in the lawsuit that Amazon took 30% of every bet placed on the platform. To compare, the traditional casinos take between 1% and 15%. This means the company earned $1.8 billion in 2020.

The consequence of the collaboration between the biggest e-commerce platform in the world and social casino brands is the serious addiction of the players, which has many consequences, including depression, divorce, and even attempted suicide.

In the US, social casinos are legal in the majority of cases, but the Washington Court has considered them illegal since 2018, especially mentioning Churchill Downs and Big Fish Casino. The virtual chips are considered “things of value,” so playing these games is actually gambling – but this didn’t stop Amazon from participating in such games.

The company hasn’t commented on the lawsuit yet.

Source: Fletcher, Robert, “Amazon faces legal challenge over “addictive” social casino apps”. iGaming Business. November 14, 2023.

The post Amazon Involved in the Lawsuit Over the Social Casino Games appeared first on Keno Wizard.

A new Amazon Prime documentary tells the story of the clashes between Jewish gangsters and Nazis in America. The documentary is called The Last Man Standing: The Chronicles of Myron Sugerman and follows the life of Sugarman, a criminal gambling mogul who often clashed with anti-Semitic groups in the United States.

Sugarman operated a variety of illegal gambling businesses and machines in New Jersey and Manhattan. In the movie, the now-85-year-old remembers his time at the Kosher-Nostra, the notorious Jewish mafia in America. Sugarman’s foray into the world of organized crime was facilitated by his father, Barney “Sugie” Sugerman, who was friends with many famous mobsters.

Sugie participated in a variety of illegal activities, from operating a variety of gambling machines to organizing illegal fights and robberies. However, Sugerman Junior was the true “godfather of illegal slot machines,” at least in his own words. He also describes himself as the “biggest contrabandist and bootlegger of Bally Bingo machines” in the US.

Although Sugarman has quite an impressive track record of participation in organized crime, he claims that a part of the mafia’s drive was to show others that Jews are tough and can fight. Regardless of whether this moral justification is true or not, Sugarman’s illegal gambling operations eventually earned him a prison sentence.

Despite that, Sugarman says that he does not feel sorry for his distribution and operation of gambling machines. He believes that the only reason the government outlawed these activities is that it wanted the profits for itself. The ex-mobster summarized this as “the big fish eating the small fish.”

Organized Crime Clashed with Nazism

Evidently, the Nazi rhetoric attracted the animosity of the Kosher-Nostra. Even before Sugerman had been born, the mob had founded the Newark Minutemen, a gang that was dedicated to fighting promoters of Nazi ideology.

Since 1930, the Newark Minutemen regularly clashed with American Nazis, including “the Hitler of the US,” Fritz Kuhn, and his followers. According to Sugarman, in later years, the mobsters would chase the Nazis out of buildings with stink bombs and beat them outside.

Several decades later, Sugarman joined forces with Simon Wiesenthal, a famous “Nazi hunter,” as the two sought to find Josef Mengele, Hitler’s “Angel of Death.” Sugarman funded Wiesenthal’s search and the two of them became good friends.

You can see Myron Sugarman’s story for yourself by watching The Last Man Standing: The Chronicles of Myron Sugerman on Amazon Prime. The hour-long movie is available for $9.99.

The post Amazon Film Looks at Illegal Gambling Boss Who Fought Nazis in the US appeared first on Keno Wizard.