This past May, two gamblers launched a lawsuit against the SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, asserting that they had been cheated out of potential winnings for almost a year because the venue’s automatic card shufflers were malfunctioning. Anthony Mattia claimed he had lost $147,000 at the casino and William Vespe tacked on another $103,000 in losses. 
SugarHouse is now off the hook as the pair have decided to withdraw their lawsuit, as reported by PennBets.
Mattia and Vespe had argued that the casino’s shufflers were not working properly and that, as a result, they lost money playing blackjack, poker and mini-baccarat. They accused the venue, and parent company Rush Street Gaming, of negligence, unjust enrichment and breach of contract. Their allegations were supported by fines levied against the casino by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) for using bad decks at the games. Some decks had been found to have too many cards and others didn’t have enough, and automatic shufflers were found to sometimes deal sequentially, not randomly.
The lawsuit had been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a federal court. SugarHouse had argued that the case didn’t fall under federal jurisdiction and sought dismissal (in pdf) of the lawsuit. PennBets reports that the lawsuit has now been voluntarily withdrawn by the gamblers, according to court documents from July 11.
The lawsuit was withdrawn without prejudice — another way of saying that Mattia and Vespe could decide to refile their suit at a later date. If they plan on doing so, they’re going to need to be better prepared. SugarHouse had pointed out when it requested the dismissal that the plaintiffs had not been able to properly show how much money they had actually lost and that they made other accusations in the suit that were not founded on legal grounds. Among these, according to SugarHouse’s request, was that the gamblers did not “allege any specific facts that establish they gambled and suffered ‘wagering losses’ on the same dates in which SugarHouse purportedly committed the infractions identified in the Complaint.”
The duo’s lawyers might be back at the drawing board now looking for a new angle from which to go after the casino and Rush Street.
