Lightning Link - billed as a “10-year game” - took off in Australia and is now played in casinos on six continents. But now the $20 billion Aristocrat suspects the secrets behind Lightning Link’s success may have fallen into the hands of its rival, Ainsworth Game Technology. Aristocrat has demanded a trove of confidential documents from Ainsworth to discover how it developed one of its new releases. The Federal Court case highlights the sophistication of poker machines, as the NSW government predicts the state's pokie profits will hit $7 billion a year by 2021, a 12 per cent increase. Australians on average lose more money gambling than any other people, consultancy H2 Gambling Capital has found.

‘A little bit of magic’ In Brookvale in Sydney’s north, artists, sound engineers, mathematicians, computer programmers and market analysts arrive at the same boutique studio each day. They are the staff of High Roller Gaming, a production company creating new pokies exclusively for Aristocrat. Lightning Link has been "hugely beneficial" to Aristocrat's growth in the pokies market, according to an analyst. Credit:Peter Braig

High Roller is a family business, headed by Mr Olive as chief executive and his wife Tiane, a creative consultant. It is also a lucrative one: the Olives last year bought an $8 million home at Whale Beach. First beginning work with Aristocrat in 1997, the 46-year-old Mr Olive has gone on to earn a reputation as a pioneer of new forms of games. He specialised in pokies with progressive jackpots, where the prize pool grows the more a player plays, and linked jackpots, where players sitting side-by-side vie for a common pool. After a period spent working for competitors, the Sydney-born Mr Olive was lured back in a deal with Aristocrat in 2012 and delivered a "linked progressive" hit within three years. Lightning Link varieties such as Moon Race, Magic Pearl, Sahara Gold and Wild Chuco boosted profits, first in Australia and then around the world.

“It has been hugely beneficial to Aristocrat’s sales growth,” said James Lawrence, an analyst at Morgans who described the game as an “exceptional” performer. In North America, industry analysts Eilers-Fantini ranked Lightning Link as the number one game leased to casinos last year. Lounges devoted to it have opened in Las Vegas, Guadalajara in Mexico and Panama. Darwin’s SkyCity Casino even holds the “Ultimate Lightning Link Challenge” in which participants pay to go in a raffle, hoping to be selected for weekly “heats”. After putting forward their own money, matched by the casino, contestants compete to see who can win the most (or lose the least) money, aiming for a spot in a grand final with a $5000 cash prize. The players must take another spin once every five seconds or face disqualification. “There is a little bit of magic involved in game development,” Mr Olive told one trade publications.

But more powerful than magic is mathematics. The court case Aristocrat and Ainsworth, both created and then sold by the 95-year-old magnate Len Ainsworth, are two of the country’s largest pokies producers. The pair compete for gamblers’ attention in Australia and internationally, devising terminals whose every spin and symbol is governed by complex mathematical models. The Olives, who both work in the pokies industry, bought an $8 million house at Whale Beach last year. Credit:Domain

“In this industry, intellectual property is everything,” Mr Lawrence, the Morgans analyst, said. Last year, Aristocrat filed more patent applications than any other Australian-based applicant - 157 compared to the second-placed CSIRO with 45. Trevor Croker, Aristocrat’s chief executive, said of Lightning Link in 2016: "We have competitors which are closely following this product and you find pretty quickly your competitors come and try and improve it.” Meanwhile, Ainsworth was pinning hopes on Jackpot Strike, a new “key offering” that was expected to deliver “meaningful improvements” to the company’s bottom line, according to its last annual report. Aristocrat’s lawyers are now trying to find out whether Lightning Link features have been illicitly copied into Jackpot Strikes’ design.

In April, Aristocrat filed a claim to see source code, mathematical tables, game rules, artwork, sound files and commercial correspondence from Ainsworth. Game designer Sujay Prabhu worked for Ainsworth, Aristocrat, then Ainsworth again. Credit:Facebook It also sought a host of other documents related to an employee named Sujay Damodar Prabhu, who left his job at Ainsworth to work for Aristocrat briefly in 2016. The University of Sydney engineering graduate then returned to Ainsworth, where he continues to work as a game design team leader, according to his LinkedIn profile. Aristocrat have demanded “all documents recording any input by Mr Prabhu” into Jackpot Strike’s development, including mathematical spreadsheets, as well as any document in which Mr Prabhu referred to Lightning Link.

A week after Aristocrat launched its claim, Ainsworth slashed its pre-tax profit forecast by 53 per cent, citing "competitive activity" and "further product development changes" among the reasons. Ainsworth general counsel David Greenslade did not answer directly when asked if investors had been made aware of the court case but said the listed company complied with disclosure obligations. Mr Greenslade declined to answer other questions about the case except to say it was only an application for documents. "It involves no claim for substantive relief or damages against Ainsworth and Ainsworth is opposing this application," he said. Aristocrat declined to comment on the case and has previously declined an interview request on Mr Olive's behalf.