Class Action Payout Per Person: What Gambling Settlements Actually Paid Each Claimant

Every gambling class action settlement in the record pays each claimant a share of a net fund, and the share is computed, not promised: the fund minus fees, costs, administration and incentive awards, multiplied by the claimant's spend or loss as a fraction of everyone's valid claims. That is why two players in the same settlement get different checks.

So what did a claimant actually get? The record holds exactly two measured averages as of 14 November 2026: the Federal Trade Commission's first Fortnite refund round, about USD 114 per payment, and Crown's Zantran settlement in Australia, about AUD 1.12 gross and AUD 0.73 net per damaged share.

Formula from the Pulsz settlement agreement (classaction.org copy) and the Washington plans of allocation; the claim rate is unknown until the deadline, so every figure is an estimate; checked 14 November 2026.

Short answer: there is no average, there is a formula, and the claim rate decides it

No gambling settlement has published an average payout per person, and the figures circulating for Big Fish and DoubleDown are reader reports, not administrator or docket numbers; 5 US consumer settlements accept claims as of 14 November 2026.

The share depends on the claim rate, which nobody knows until the deadline passes. The record of every fund and its deductions is ranked on gambling settlements by year and amount, and the open ones are Pulsz six-state, High 5 and the New York Attorney General's VGW redemption.

What the courts have actually decided

Six settlements carry the published mechanics, and none of them carries a published average.

Each row states what the order or notice says; the per-claimant result is never printed in any of them.

The formula every gambling settlement in the record uses

Member share equals the gross fund plus interest, minus attorney fees, costs, administration, incentive awards and taxes, multiplied by the member's recognized spend or loss divided by the sum of all valid claimants' recognized spend or loss.

Three variants appear in the record: tiered marginal recovery on lifetime spend in Washington, a flat percentage of net spend with a cash cap in the Alabama six-state deals, and recognized-loss pro rata in the securities, NFT and Crown cases.

A worked example uses only the Pulsz case's own estimate. A player with USD 1,000 in net spend is set to receive about USD 230 in cash at the 23 percent election rate before deductions, and roughly USD 150 to 230 after administration, incentive awards and a pro rata share of fees (requested up to 30 percent).

The agreement says the defendant pays the fee award, yet also computes each benefit net of fees, so both readings are shown.

That is an estimate, and it applies only if the court grants final approval at the fairness hearing on 31 December 2026; the lower bound assumes the full fee request and is this site's own estimate.

Pulsz adds two limits. Cash elections are capped at 25 percent of the estimated total benefit, with any shortfall paid in Gold Coins, and cash is due within 60 days after final approval and any appeal.

Any number of this kind moves with the claim rate and the fee award. To test other assumptions, use the gambling settlement payout per person calculator, which applies the same formula with the deduction stack.

Pro rata, tiers or flat amounts: why two claimants get different checks

No: the record holds three ways of splitting a fund, and only the flat-amount settlements pay two claimants the same. Pro rata on documented losses is used in Armstead v.

VGW Malta (Kentucky, USD 11,750,000), Dufoe v. DraftKings and the Crown shareholder settlement in Victoria, where each claimant's share is the net fund times that claimant's loss over all claimants' losses.

Tiers raise the percentage as spend rises. Playtika pays 10 percent of spend under USD 1,000 and rises to 60 percent above USD 100,000, DoubleDown and Big Fish use escalating marginal tiers scaled to exhaust the net fund, and the MGM data breach settlement (USD 45,000,000) pays about USD 75, 50 or 20 by the type of data exposed, plus documented losses up to USD 15,000, per a copy of the notice.

Flat amounts are rare. The IP Casino text-message settlement gave USD 150 per claimant as a gift card, the DraftKings Sports Betting National Championship settlement is reported at a USD 150 site credit per member (settled-preliminary as of 28 April 2020), and the Epic Games loot llama settlement paid cash up to USD 25 in full, USD 25 plus half the excess above it, to a cap of USD 50.

What the published rates were, settlement by settlement

The table lists every settlement in the record whose notice, agreement or order states a per-claimant rate or amount, and marks which figures are administrator estimates and which are secondary.

The estimated Pulsz benefit of about USD 14,000,000 is about a quarter of class members' net purchase amounts and mostly Gold Coins, so a cash figure should be read only against the 23 percent election. Matters that still accept claims are ranked by deadline on open gambling class action settlements by deadline.

The deductions: fees, costs, administration and incentive awards

Fees are the largest deduction and the court sets them: 25 percent of the fund in the four Washington social casino settlements (Big Fish USD 38,750,000, Playtika 9,500,000, Huuuge 1,625,000, Zynga 3,000,000), 29.3 percent in DoubleDown (USD 121,485,000 of 415 million) and one third in the Wynn securities settlement, per class counsel's release.

Requests run higher. Pulsz counsel may ask for up to 30 percent, High 5 up to 35 percent, and Dufoe one third; SciPlay's six-state summary lists fees up to USD 9,000,000 against a cash pool of USD 5,000,000, and the fee order was not read.

The Ninth Circuit benchmark is 25 percent (In re Bluetooth, 654 F.3d 935, 942), and Fitzpatrick's study of 688 settlements found a mean near 25 percent, with two thirds of awards between 25 and 35 percent. The case-by-case comparison is on attorney fees in gambling class actions: 25 to 33 percent.

Costs, administration and incentive awards are smaller but visible. DoubleDown capped administration at USD 3,000,000 and paid incentive awards of USD 7,500 each, Big Fish costs were USD 1,590,690, Papaya administration was about USD 389,886 with a USD 3,000 service award, and Dufoe administration is capped at USD 180,000.

Claim rates and leftover money: who gets what nobody claims

The claim rate is the number nobody knows at the deadline and the one that moves every estimate most, and the record holds exactly one measured gambling claim rate: in Ferrando v. Zynga claims covered at least USD 14.45 million of USD 57 million class spend, an adjusted claims rate of 25.25 percent.

Unclaimed money goes one of three ways. Huuuge, Zynga and High 5 are non-reversionary, so the unclaimed share is redistributed to claimants, and SciPlay's Washington residue after 90 days is apportioned pro rata. Pulsz returns uncashed checks and failed deposits to the defendant after 90 days and gives the member Gold Coins (s. 2.1(f)).

The MDL 2677 settlement sent USD 375,000 from FanDuel to cy pres, and Lieberman v Crown shares any residual pro rata or donates it to the Alliance for Gambling Reform if distribution is uneconomical.

High 5 pays in rounds because the defendant pays the fund in over time: USD 4,000,000 within 15 days of preliminary approval, then at least USD 1,000,000 a year or 20 percent of audited net income capped at USD 2,000,000, for up to eight years.

A claimant's share is member spend divided by total claimed spend, times the net amount paid in so far, so the same claim can pay in more than one round. The administrator site lists a claims deadline of 4 January 2027; the amending order was not retrieved.

Some claims pay nothing. Dufoe pays nothing under USD 5 of recognized loss, and Lieberman sets a minimum distribution of AUD 20. Nobody needs a receipt in the Pulsz case: its exclusion letters require Player IDs or UserIDs and associated emails, and Big Fish reportedly asked for account information such as friend codes or email, per a tracker page. The filing steps are on how to file a claim in a gambling settlement.

Differences by country

Outside the US class fund the per-person amount is set four other ways: a scheme administrator's loss formula in Australia, a court-approved allocation in Canada, an individual judgment for deposits minus withdrawals in Germany and Austria, and a regulator's refund program in the FTC cases.

In Germany and Austria the claim is the loss itself, so a player can estimate it with the online casino refund estimate (Germany and Austria); no administrator, claim form or deadline exists, and the funder's share comes out of what the court awards.

What this page does not cover

This page does not estimate your own share, does not cover settlements outside gambling, and does not cover cases that have no payout. Filing a claim is free, and this site is not a law firm and not a claims administrator.

No addiction or duty-of-care case has ever paid a player, and no DraftKings or FanDuel class has a payout except the Dufoe NFT settlement; the category is on gambling addiction lawsuits.

Affirm is a defendant in Modo Casino / McLuck / Affirm gambling-addiction suit. Cash App and other non-gambling settlements are outside the border, and the wider explainers sit in guides: how gambling lawsuits and settlements work.

Questions people ask

Does everyone get the same amount of money in a gambling class action?

Only in flat-amount settlements such as the IP Casino USD 150 gift card; every social casino and sweepstakes settlement in the record pays pro rata on each claimant's own spend, so two claimants with different spend get different checks.

What is the Chumba Casino payout per person?

The only completed VGW cash settlement, Armstead v. VGW Malta (Henderson County, Kentucky, 2022-CI-00553, USD 11.75 million, claims closed 6 March 2023), paid a proportional share of the net fund on documented losses and never published an average. The New York redemption running to 31 August 2027 pays the cash value of Sweeps Coins held on 2 June 2025, not a share of the USD 8 million; the company page is VGW (Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots, Global Poker) lawsuits.

Where do the "USD 7.50 to 100,000" Big Fish figures come from?

From reader comments on an aggregator page, not from the administrator or the docket; the record has the fund, the fee and cost awards and the tier formula for the Big Fish Casino settlement (USD 155M), and no per-claimant distribution figure.

How many people does it take to form a class?

No fixed number; the smallest certified gambling class in the record is 99 bettors and the largest settlements covered every player of an app, as how a gambling class action works, step by step explains.

Is a gambling settlement payment taxable?

The record does not decide it; the IRS, ATO, HMRC and BFH sources are listed on are gambling settlement payments taxable: IRS, ATO, HMRC and BFH references, and this site gives no tax advice.

The editorial team's methodology sets out how each case is sourced and checked.