August 19, 2025
A federal appeals court’s decision shutting down allegations that Las Vegas hotel-casinos colluded on room prices reduces legal risk for companies using algorithmic software for pricing decisions.
Even if the hotels were aware of their competitors’ use of Cendyn Group LLC’s pricing software, their individual decisions to use those products themselves were insufficient to support a federal antitrust claim, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in a first-of-its-kind decision Aug. 15.
The ruling, which upheld a lower court’s dismissal of the case, is a significant win for Caesars Entertainment Inc., Wynn Resorts Ltd., and other hotel-casinos accused of using the software to inflate room prices on the Las Vegas Strip. The Ninth Circuit said there’s no conspiracy without an agreement.
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The opinion suggests hotels can get around antitrust scrutiny as long as there is no evidence they communicated with each other, said Benjamin D. Brown, co-chair of Cohen Milstein’s antitrust practice.
“It’s potentially a step down a dangerous path of encouraging competing corporations to collude on price simply by choosing the same entity to outsource their pricing decisions,” Brown said. “It creates a very easy roadmap for price fixing.”
Read Algorithmic Pricing Gets Boost in Ninth Cir. Hotel-Casino Ruling.