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A federal appeals court has revived antitrust claims accusing Atlantic City casino-hotels and pricing vendor Cendyn Group of using shared algorithmic pricing tools to coordinate hotel room rates, a ruling that could keep a closely watched case against Caesars Entertainment and other operators alive.
On July 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed a lower court’s dismissal of the putative class action in _Cornish-Adebiyi v. Caesars Entertainment, Inc._, No. 24-3006, 2026 WL 2182291. The plaintiffs allege the casino-hotels and Cendyn participated in a hub-and-spoke conspiracy to fix room prices in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
Court says the allegations can move past the pleading stage
The Third Circuit held that the complaint plausibly alleged both parallel conduct and several so-called plus factors needed to support an antitrust conspiracy claim at this stage.
According to the opinion, the plaintiffs sufficiently alleged that competing casino-hotels shared real-time, non-public pricing and occupancy data through Cendyn’s Rainmaker software, which then generated pricing recommendations. The court said it was not necessary at the motion-to-dismiss stage for plaintiffs to spell out the software’s proprietary mechanics before discovery.
The panel also said the fact that hotel operators retained final say over their room prices did not defeat the claims. The complaint alleged roughly a 90% compliance rate with Cendyn’s recommendations.
Why the ruling matters for casino operators using pricing algorithms
The decision does not say algorithmic pricing is unlawful by itself. The Third Circuit explicitly stated that there is nothing inherently anticompetitive about using algorithms in commercial activity.
Instead, the court focused on the alleged exchange of confidential commercial information through a common hub. It pointed to alleged signs of conspiracy including motive to conspire, conduct against economic self-interest, opportunities to conspire, the exchange of non-public information, and an alleged break from prior business practices.
The complaint also cited room-rate increases of $15 to $60 per night during the proposed class period even as occupancy rates declined.
In discussing the theory of harm, the court quoted former acting FTC Chair Maureen K. Ohlhausen’s analogy: if it would be illegal for “a guy named Bob” to collect competitors’ confidential pricing strategies and tell them how to price, using an algorithm may raise the same concern.
What comes next
The ruling sends the case back for further proceedings rather than resolving the merits. For casino operators, the opinion signals that courts may let antitrust suits proceed when plaintiffs plausibly allege competitors shared non-public pricing data through a common software platform.
For consumers, the case remains at the allegation stage, and the plaintiffs still must prove the alleged conspiracy after discovery.
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Source: As reported by jdsupra.com.
