Tolkien estate resolves Lord of the Rings slots lawsuit

The estate of legendary fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien has settled its lawsuit with film studio Warner Bros. over what the estate claims was the unauthorized licensing of its intellectual property for gambling purposes.

In 2012, the Tolkien estate, along with publisher Harper Collins, sued Warner Bros. for the unauthorized use of characters, imagery and other intellectual property associated with Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and The Hobbit novels. Warner had licensed the products to casino software developer Microgaming, which created a slots title based on The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of the LOTR trilogy.

While Warner had worked out a deal with the Tolkien estate, the Tolkien camp argued that the deal covered only the sale of “tangible” merchandise, and not the “morally-questionable (and decidedly non-literary) world of online and casino gambling.”

Amusingly, the Tolkien estate didn’t cotton on to the fact that people were gambling on Gollum until a couple years after Microgaming signed its digital licensing deal with Warner. As legend has it, a Tolkien estate attorney felt the eye of Sauron upon him after receiving an email promo pitching the LOTR slot.