This isn’t the first time Apple has been in serious hot water for allowing apps which offer illegal gambling onto its platform. While the company did run a mass sweep of the App Store back in 2018, taking down 25,000 Chinese gambling apps, it’s done little to prevent more of these harmful apps from sprouting up all over the platform since then.
The gambling apps under attack in this case are hosted by a particular developer, DoubleU Games Co., Ltd. The complaint states that its casino-style slot machines and table games “[constitute] illegal gambling pursuant to the law of [25] states,” states in which the lawsuit is seeking class-action status.
“On average,” the lawsuit says, “the Apple App Store drives 50% of all app installs. Of that, roughly 21% of installs come from users who discover and install apps through browsing the featured apps or sifting through app categories.” This means that Apple is knowingly featuring profitable gambling apps through its algorithm to make them more discoverable, and pushing them on its users.
Apple is providing the software tools and promoting in-app integration with its own features to DoubleU and similar developers—essentially “contributing materially” to the illegality of the affair. For these reasons the plaintiffs believe there is enough evidence to force Apple to curb future damage done by DoubleU’s harmful gambling apps, and provide compensation to past victims.
