In early 2024, US District Judge Vincent Chhabria ruled that Roblox was negligent after it facilitated children using in-game currency called Robux to gamble at third-party casino sites.
Fast-forward to Wednesday and Judge Chhabria’s decision that the owner of one of those such sites, RBLXWild, “must face a US lawsuit over illegal online gambling” by kids in Roblox. The District Judge tossed RBLXWild’s owner Boris Said, Jr.’s motion to dismiss a consolidation class action complaint from plaintiffs’ Yaniv De Ridder, et al.
Chhabria ruled it was wrong for Said to argue that the plaintiffs’ Unfair Competition Law claim should get dismissed “because corporate owners and officers” can’t be liable for such claims, according to legal risk and regulatory news service MLex.
personally created the gambling website and personally profited from it”
The judge told the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday that because Said “personally created the gambling website and personally profited from it,” he was, indeed, liable.
Chhabria concluded that while the plaintiffs’ complaint could have included more detail, their allegations are “sufficient to make it plausible that RBLXWild was in essence a ‘sham corporation’ that Said used to avoid personal liability.”
RBLXWild was one of three major online Robux casinos, along with Bloxmoon and BloxFlip, named by a Sky News team in 2024 as allowing Roblox users to gamble. The Sky probe led the UK Gambling Commission to start its own investigation into Roblox gambling.
