D.C.'s weirdest lawsuit involves sports gambling and a British monarch
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An anonymous group of lawyers is suing D.C.'s sports gambling companies under an obscure 300-year-old law, hoping to win hundreds of millions of dollars.
Why it matters: The story gets weirder from here — including a quiet push for the D.C. Council to quash the lawsuit.
State of play: D.C. Gambling Recovery LLC, registered in Delaware, calls itself a group of "several public-interest oriented lawyers."
- They're suing Caesars, FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, and Fanatics over a D.C. law that originated with Britain's Queen Anne in the early 1700s.
Context: The Statute of Anne, as first reported by 51st News, makes it illegal for a bettor to lose $25 or more in a game of chance. The original law was intended to discourage gambling.
- Similar laws exist in other states.
The intrigue: If successful, half of the lawyer group's payout would go to the District. The anonymous lawyers estimate that to be more than $300 million — not bad, especially in a tough budget year.
Yes, but: Since suing in April, Mayor Muriel Bowser quietly inserted a provision in next year's budget that would make the law not apply to legalized sports gambling.
- It would apply retroactively, quashing the lawsuit.
- And barring last-minute changes, the D.C. Council is expected to approve the budget on Monday, despite the lawyers' pleas to scrap the provision.
What they're saying: "The D.C. Council is quietly working to bailout big gambling corporations that owe the District over $300 million," says the lawyers group's campaign website.
- "Why? It's anyone's guess," the group says.
- Similar cases include a $1.2 billion verdict in Kentucky against online operator PokerStars, the group's legal counsel told the D.C. Council in a letter earlier this month.
- They want the provision to be removed, or at least not apply retroactively.
Lawyers representing the sports betting companies didn't immediately return Axios' request for comment.
The other side: The sports betting companies want the federal judge to throw out the case, per the 51st.
- In court filings, the groups say that suing under a 1710 law is "absurd as a matter of common sense."
Meanwhile, no comment from Council Chair Phil Mendelson's office about whether he'll be swayed.