backOn April 23, 2026, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found Papaya Gaming Ltd. and Papaya Gaming Inc. (together, “Papaya”) liable for false advertising and ordered Papaya to pay $420 million in damages to King & Spalding client Skillz Platform Inc. (“Skillz”). The jury also awarded $719 million in disgorgement. This result is the largest Lanham Act award ever.
In March 2024, on behalf of Skillz, King & Spalding filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York asserting claims for false advertising and unfair business practices under the Lanham Act and N.Y. General Business Law against Papaya for Papaya’s undisclosed use of bots to unfairly control the outcomes of tournaments in its skill-based mobile gaming applications. Papaya advertised that its games are “fair” and “skill-based,” and that Papaya itself has no “vested interest” in who wins or loses, in order to compete with Skillz for customers. Skillz alleged that this advertising is false because, in fact, Papaya used bots to post preselected scores attributed to nonexistent players. Papaya did this not only to create the illusion that its games are more popular among consumers, but also to control whether paying customers win or lose cash tournaments so Papaya can manipulate players into paying more entry fees into Papaya’s business than they otherwise would.
The King & Spalding team included Lazar Raynal, Craig Carpenito, Mike Lombardo, Kathleen McCarthy, Amy Nemetz, Curtis Crooke, Courtney Raia and Michael Day-Toles.