Northstar (Illinois) Lottery Group has asked a federal judge to dismiss a class action lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that the manager hurt purchasers, by removing instant games from the market before all the top prizes had been won, and retailers, who would have made additional revenue from those sales. Northstar has stated that it did not hurt ticket buyer’s luck when purchasing the game when it ended one of its games early.
In an earlier motion, the company said that those buying and selling tickets failed to meet the standard set by requiring the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 ruling in Spokeo Inc. v. Robins, which requires the party to show a tangible injury to have standing to sue. In other words, consumers and retailers weren’t injured by not winning games because they had a slim chance of winning.
“Plaintiffs’ theory of harm hinges on a faulty assumption: that Northstar’s alleged decision to end games ‘early,’ before all printed tickets were sold, somehow decreased the odds of success for the tickets Plaintiffs purchased or sold before the games were discontinued. That makes no sense . .” Northstar stated.