Skillz won an important decision this week in the company’s fraud lawsuit against Papaya Gaming, Inc.
Federal judge Denise Cole in U.S. Court in the Southern District of New York denied Papaya Gaming’s motion for a summary judgment. We are seeking comment from Papaya Gaming.
Skillz, a maker of skill-based multiplayer games between humans where real money is at stake, sued Papaya Gaming for using bots to cheat players in online games that were advertised as head-to-head human competitions.
The judge said Skillz has provided sufficient evidence to allow a jury to find in its favor. Further, judge Cote said that a jury could find that Papaya’s representations that tournaments were “fair,” skill-based” and only between “individuals” were “literally false” because of Papaya’s use of bots.
Skillz also went after AviaGames for similar charges in a previous lawsuit.
In the Papaya Gaming filing, Skillz asserted that Papaya “engaged in false advertising by stating or implying that its games pit human players against each other when in fact Papaya employed bots against human players.”
Skillz, founded in 2012, operates in the real-money skill-based mobile gaming market. Its games are available for users to download on the Apple App Store and Samsung Galaxy
Store. In such games, players are matched by the platform with other users on games created by third parties and compete to win cash prizes or for game rewards.
Papaya was founded in 2016 and entered the real-money skill-based gaming market as a
direct competitor to Skillz in 2019. Papaya’s games are also available on the Apple and Samsung app stores and are similar to those offered on the Skillz platform. But while Skillz most commonly offers head-to-head competition between two players, Papaya offers multi-player tournaments with larger cash prizes.
Papaya has described its games are “fair” and “skill-based,” represented that Papaya has “no vested interest” in and does not “profit” from who wins or loses its tournaments, and
refers to “players,” “individuals,” and ultimately “winners” as the users on its platform, the lawsuit said.
But Skillz alleged Papaya used bots in its games from 2019 until at least November 2023.
Skillz alleged Papaya customers inquired between 2021 and 2023 whether they were playing against other human beings or against a computer or a bot. Papaya’s responses generally emphasized that it matched players with similar skill levels and assured the
complaining customers over 200 times that “we do not use bots.”
Skillz also alleged Papaya internal policy memorandum instructed customer service representatives to escalate any complaints to management that reference “bot” or “AI,” or where the user accuses Papaya of matching them with non-human opponents. Papaya does not dispute that it closed the accounts of two players who expressed suspicion about Papaya’s use of bots.
[Updated at 1:06 pm on 10/31/25 with corrected allegation].