LAS VEGAS (Legal Newsline) – A professional poker player shut out of World Series of Poker Circuit events has lost his federal lawsuit against Caesars Entertainment Corporation.
That’s because he’d already filed the same claims in an earlier Maryland state court lawsuit, Las Vegas federal judge Gloria Navarro wrote. Caesars banned Robert Lay from tournaments despite his qualifying for them.
Caesars told him he was an “undesirable” person and told him to keep off its premises. Lay had been indicted on sports gambling charges in 2013 in Oklahoma, to which he pleaded guilty to one count.
He was sentenced to one year of probation and 104 hours of community service.
Lay sued Caesars Enterprises Services in 2017, alleging fraud, negligent misrepresentation, negligence per se and unfair and deceptive trade practices. After the case was removed to federal court, a judge dismissed it in 2018.
Lay again sued, naming Caesars Entertainment Corporation as defendant. He believed the claims were different because of the different defendant, but Navarro ruled that wasn’t the case.
“Plaintiff knew in the first Lay action that Defendant was connected to the WSOPC and further, that Defendant issued the banning notice central to Plaintiff’s claims,” she wrote.
“Plaintiff’s refusal to name Defendant in the first Lay action does not insulate his instant suit from the doctrine of claim preclusion.”