The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) was in a Kentucky court on Wednesday, where it was accused of trying to save Amaya Gaming half a billion bucks.

On Nov. 20, Franklin Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate ordered Amaya and its PokerStars subsidiary to pay the state $290m for serving Kentucky players without the state’s permission in the years before Stars exited the US market. The state is pushing Wingate to grant them treble damages, potentially bringing Amaya’s bill to over three quarters of a billion dollars.

Kentucky filed the civil suit in 2010 against multiple operators, including PartyGaming, using a century-old law that allows third parties to file claims on illegal gambling losses suffered by other players. Bwin.party digital entertainment, which was preparing to enter New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market, chose to settle the PartyGaming suit in 2013 by cutting Kentucky a check for $15m, which suddenly looks like a bargain.

Last week, the PPA announced it would seek to intervene in the PokerStars suit on behalf of the state’s estimated 14k poker players. On Wednesday, PPA attorney Don Cox appeared before Wingate to argue that if anyone was to reap the benefits of this suit, it should be the players who actually lost the money, not the state and its ambulance chasing lawyers (we’re paraphrasing).