US court dismisses antitrust lawsuit against Las Vegas hotel operators

A proposed class action lawsuit accusing major Las Vegas hotel operators, including MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment, and others of conspiring to overcharge for room rates in violation of US antitrust law has been dismissed by Chief US District Judge Miranda Du in Nevada.

In a 13-page order issued on Tuesday, Du cited "ambiguity" and "numerous deficiencies" in the consumer lawsuit against the hotel companies and a pricing software platform, Reuters reported. However, Du did not rule on the merits of the lawsuit's underlying antitrust claims, as the defendants consistently deny wrongdoing.

The other defendants named in the lawsuit were Wynn Resorts, Treasure Island, and Cendyn, a revenue management software developer for the hospitality industry. Plaintiffs, represented by attorney Steve Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, expressed their intention to file an amended complaint within 30 days, aiming to address the court's concerns.

The original lawsuit sought class-action status for consumers who had rented a hotel room on the Las Vegas Strip, the popular four-mile entertainment district south of Las Vegas, since 2019. The complaint, brought by residents of Florida and Washington state, alleged that the hotel defendants used shared data from Cendyn subsidiary Rainmaker to manipulate room prices and defy supply and demand dynamics.

Rainmaker was accused of collecting confidential price information from each of the hotel operators and advising them on pricing through various algorithms. In her ruling, Judge Du found that the plaintiffs' complaint failed to convincingly allege that the defendants had entered into an agreement or to demonstrate whether the hotel operators all used the same pricing algorithm, the Reuters report said. 

Du also noted that the plaintiffs' complaint did not establish that the hotel operators were "required" to accept the prices recommended by the Rainmaker software.