Vegas firms accused of violating casinos’ trademarks

Wednesday, April 25, 2001 | 10:45 a.m.

Two Las Vegas hotel-casino operators sued to stop a Las Vegas man and his two companies from using their trademarks to offer online sports betting.

Mandalay Resort Group and MGM MIRAGE'S Mirage Resorts Inc., Treasure Island Corp. and Bellagio sued Nick Pavlica and his two companies, Global One Corp. and Sports Management.

The U.S. District Court lawsuit alleges Pavlica's companies linked four domain names that contained the hotel-casinos' trademarks to a website that operates as an online sports book.

The suit said Global One transferred the four names, "belagiosportsbook.com," "goldennuggetsportsbook.com," "treasureislandsportsbook.com" and "circuscircussportsbook.com" to Sports Management in September. The Bellagio hotel is spelled differently than the "belagio" in the website.

The suit said the defendants refused to comply with the plaintiffs' demands to stop infringing the hotel-casinos' trademarks.

The defendants allegedly stated in an e-mail that the plaintiffs weren't entitled to exclusive use of their registered trademarks for casino services and allegedly offered to sell the domain names to the plaintiffs, the lawsuit said.

The defendants could not be reached for comment.