Georgia Lottery’s biggest vendor sues ex-staffer over trade secrets

The Georgia Lottery's biggest gaming vendor filed suit this week, accusing a former employee of stealing thousands of electronic files with its "most valuable and prized" trade secrets that could be worth millions of dollars to its chief rival in the United States.

Scientific Games International Inc., which has offices in Alpharetta, has asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent anyone from using what it says is proprietary gaming and financial information. It has also asked the judge to ban a former vice president, Brian Keith Cash, from working with a competitor, International Game Technology PLC, for the next three years.

While the suit names Cash as the defendant, it’s a rare public look at the stakes in a prolific multibillion-dollar industry. The two companies compete neck and neck as the two biggest providers to lotteries in the United States of so-called “instant-lottery” services, such as popular scratch-off ticket games for sale at local convenience stores across the state.

Both companies also compete globally, with Scientific Games — which on its own maintains a database of over 40,000 games — acknowledging in documents this week that at least five major customer accounts it alleges were included in the theft will be up for rebid early next year in transactions that could be worth more than $1 billion.

According to the civil suit and related filings, Cash — who had worked for the company since 1993 — resigned from Scientific Games earlier this month to work for IGT in a similar executive position. Both companies develop games for Georgia's own billion-dollar lottery, although Scientific Games has been with Georgia since the lottery's 1993 founding and recently signed a seven-year extension of its current "instant games" contract with the state.

IGT, per policy, declined to comment on the suit. Cash did not immediately return a phone message left at his home.

In a statement Friday, Scientific Games indicated Cash was one of two longtime senior executives who it believes took trade secrets and other confidential information when they recently left the company.

“Unauthorized access or use of our intellectual property, trade secrets, contracts, sales and marketing plans, data files or any other nonpublic or confidential information is unacceptable,” the company said. “As a publicly traded company, this cannot and will not be tolerated. Scientific Games will continue to pursue all legal remedies available to us.”