Every frequent player of online slot machines must have tried at least one of the branded Cryptologic video slots featuring characters from Marvel comics. Such world famous heroes as The Incredible Hulk, Spiderman and X-men have been appearing on the reels of Cryptologic slots since 2005 to much appreciation on the gamblers’ side. Some of the most prominent online casino operators like 888, William Hill, Paddy Power or Ladbrokes have signed licensing agreements with the branded online games provider to offer their customers those Cryptologic slots, based on Marvel characters. But this mutually rewarding cooperation might come to an end following the recent law suit, initiated by Wagerlogic Ltd., a subsidiary company owned by Cryptologic Limited against Marvel Enterprises Inc. and Marvel Enterprises B.V.
The arbitration proceedings have been announced through a regular press release, issued by Cryptologic on the 16th of April, 2010. It was headlined as Notification of Arbitration Proceedings and unlike most of the other press releases of the company it didn’t contain any useful to the online gambling community information, being more of a legally required procedure. It was stated in the release that Marvel had breached some of the provisions of its agreement with Wagerlogic Ltd., concerning the licensing of Marvel comic book characters. The exact breaches of the agreement remained unclear, though it is obvious that the issue is quite important, otherwise there would have been no need to bring it before a court. Wagerlogic Ltd. is known as an online casino software developer for Cryptologic, and their cooperation with Marvel has always been a source of mutual profit, so now it is quite difficult to say what licensing rights and commercial interests of Wagerlogic have been presumably breached by the comic publishing company.
Concerning the reasons for the lawsuit most of the analysts point out to the fact that while 17 online video slots featuring Marvel characters have been developed by Cryptologic during the 4 years of their cooperation, not a single one appeared after December 2008. Instead, in March 2009 another famous online gambling software developer called Playtech had signed an exclusive agreement with Marvel and started to produce video slots with the same characters as those of the Cryptologic games. 5 Marvel branded Playtech slots appeared a couple of month ago in spite of the June 2009 extension of the agreement between Marvel and Cryptologic, which was to last until the end of 2013.