A Franklin County man sued an online sweepstakes casino last week.
Michael Sumerel filed a statewide class action lawsuit against High 5 Games and High 5 Entertainment in Franklin County Circuit Court on June 9.
High 5 and other online “sweepstakes casinos” attempt to skirt state and federal gambling laws by having customers pay to buy virtual coins to use on slot machines. The coins can then be converted back into cash. Many of the companies running the online sweepstakes casinos are based in foreign countries.
Jeffrey Bowling, Sumerel’s attorney, said in the lawsuit, “The social ills caused by 'social casino' and 'sweeps casino' games, even those that do not allow users to win real money, are well-documented. Media reports show gambling addicts spend enormous, and completely unaffordable, amounts of money on these casino games.”
“Companies in the social casino and sweeps casino industry, including Defendant, have extracted tens of millions of dollars from Alabama’s economy in the last five years, all without employing a single person in the state or paying a dime in taxes to Alabama’s treasury,” Bowling added. “The money extracted from Alabama’s economy ends up not only in Defendant’s home state of Delaware, but also in places like Hong Kong, Israel, Gibraltar, Australia, and Cyprus, where other major players in the industry are headquartered. High5 is estimated to have an annual revenue of fifteen million dollars per year. Even if Alabama consumers represent but a small percentage of that total, the reality is that a great deal of money is being removed from the state’s economy each year. Again, this money leaves the state without creating any Alabama jobs or generating any tax revenue for the treasury.”
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