Hagens Berman: Las Vegas Hotel Operators Sued for Alleged Scheme to Illegally Inflate Hotel Room Rates to

Class-action lawsuit says hotel companies colluded with third party, Rainmaker, in massive Las Vegas Strip collusion, price-fixing

Consumers who rented hotel rooms on the Las Vegas Strip filed a class-action lawsuit today accusing 4 of Vegas' largest gaming and hospitality companies of engaging in an illegal price-fixing scheme to raise the cost of hotel rooms, according to Hagens Berman.

The lawsuit alleges that Rainmaker, a revenue management platform used by an estimated 90% of Vegas Strip hotels, collects real-time pricing and supply information from competitors and provides room rental rate recommendations designed to unlawfully maximize profits for its hotel operator users. Attorneys say this algorithmic-driven price-fixing comes at the expense of consumers and in violation of antitrust laws.

Attorneys say that in a competitive market, hotel operators would price rooms independently and would fill as many rooms as possible. The sharing of pricing and capacity information through Rainmaker has displaced normal competitive pricing and lead to increased room prices, according to the lawsuit, and antitrust academics have roundly criticized this type of price and supply exchange as anticompetitive.