Who owns the Aviator game? Spribe vs Aviator LLC court fight

Since August 2024, courts in six jurisdictions have handled parts of the fight over who owns the Aviator game, and none has issued a final worldwide ruling. Spribe built the crash game’s software, according to the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. However, Aviator LLC, a Georgian company, contests the rights to the Aviator name and plane artwork.

The latest step came on 6 November 2026, when the English High Court extended Spribe’s interim protection in some markets, iGaming Business reported. However, that order is temporary. The main English trial is set for October 2027, according to NEXT.io.

We last checked this account on 10 November 2026, before publication. It covers the major verified developments and keeps court records apart from press reports and company statements.

Spribe vs Aviator LLC: who are the companies?

Spribe OÜ develops and supplies the Aviator crash game sold under its name. The English High Court’s May 2026 judgment records that a company linked to Aviator launched a Georgian crash game in January 2019, using software that Spribe created. Spribe then began selling its own version internationally in December 2019, and in the UK from February 2020.

Later, the Court of Appeal put that history in one sentence:

“The software for the game was created by Spribe.” — Court of Appeal of England and Wales, 2 October 2026, paragraph 6

Aviator LLC is the Georgian company that claims rights in earlier Aviator imagery, including the plane design. It says Spribe copied protected artwork, and it challenges Spribe’s trademark registrations. Spribe, in turn, denies copying and says it designed its artwork independently.

Aviator Studio companies supply a competing Aviator-branded game. According to Aviator Studio’s own account, its rights come under licence from the Aviator side. These companies are separate from Spribe, and their licensing claims are their own position, not a court finding.

What does owning Aviator actually mean?

The question covers several separate assets: the software, the word Aviator, the plane artwork, other graphics and the reputation built around the product. Building the software does not, by itself, settle who holds the branding. Likewise, a trademark win in one country does not decide rights in another.

Spribe also counterclaims for trademark and copyright infringement and for passing off. Passing off means misleading customers into believing one product is connected with another. Spribe says its goodwill covers the name, the imagery and the gameplay. So the dispute does not reduce to an agreed split in which Spribe owns the code and Aviator LLC owns the branding everywhere.

The Aviator ownership dispute: a timeline

The timeline below separates decisions from announcements and future hearings. Where we could not confirm an order’s exact date, it shows the date of the report instead and says so.

The latest Aviator court ruling: what changed in November

The November order builds on protection Spribe first won in the summer of 2025. At that point the High Court granted Spribe interim relief against the rival game’s UK launch, iGaming Business reported in August 2025. Reports differ on whether the order came on 31 July or 1 August.

According to NEXT.io, the 6 November judgment did two things. First, it let the Aviator side add passing-off and unfair-competition claims that cover foreign markets. Second, it extended Spribe’s interim protection. Permission to bring a claim, however, is not a finding that the claim succeeds.

NEXT.io reports that the restrictions for Colombia, Romania and Serbia limit the rival game’s expansion onto new platforms. Platforms already offering it on or before 3 July 2026 can keep it, so the order does not remove every existing listing. For Canada and Italy, the reported undertakings require 28 days’ notice before a launch or targeted marketing.

iGaming Business lists nine markets in the additional claims: Canada, Colombia, Ghana, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Romania, Serbia and South Africa. As a result, those markets are now part of the English case. Still, no court has delivered a separate ownership verdict in any of them.

In addition, a case note from 11 South Square, a barristers’ chambers that acted in the case, records permission to appeal both the foreign-claims and interim-injunction parts. However, permission alone does not show that anyone has appealed, or won. We could not retrieve the full November judgment, so the detail here comes from those reports and that note.

Aviator court rulings by country

The cases involve different parties, registrations and legal questions. For that reason, read each entry’s effect and its limit together, especially where a temporary order sits next to a final local ruling.

Brazil: several separate proceedings

In April 2026, SiGMA reported that Spribe had won interim relief against NSX Brasil, which runs Betnacional, over Aviator branding. Then, in June, a federal court suspended the effects of Spribe’s Brazilian trademark registration while invalidity proceedings continue, according to a later SiGMA account. However, neither report gives an exact decision date.

After that, a Pernambuco court revoked Spribe’s interim relief, iGaming Business Brasil reported on 7 July. The federal court also rejected Spribe’s clarification motion, the same outlet reported on 3 September. Finally, on 18 September, iGaming Future published Aviator Studio’s statement that a Pernambuco court had rejected Spribe’s trademark, copyright and unfair-competition claims against NSX. We could not check that judgment’s date, reasoning or appeal status.

Malta, Curaçao and the United States

On 1 September 2026, a Maltese court granted Spribe provisional protection over its EU trademarks without first hearing the other side, NEXT.io reported. We have not confirmed what happened to that order afterwards.

Earlier, in May, a Curaçao court invalidated local protection under two Aviator LLC trademark registrations after the defendant did not appear, according to NEXT.io. That default judgment, however, covers Curaçao only. It does not cancel those registrations anywhere else.

Meanwhile, Aviator entities sued Spribe in New Jersey on 16 June 2026, the court docket shows. Competing injunction applications and counterclaims followed. A filing is not a court win, and we found no verified ruling on any of them.

Why the Georgian ruling still matters in England

In Georgia, first-instance proceedings invalidated Spribe’s disputed Georgian trademarks on 20 August 2024, according to Aviator Studio’s account. Then, on 20 May 2025, Georgia’s Supreme Court declared Spribe’s cassation appeal inadmissible, which left the appeal court’s outcome standing. That decision concerns Georgian trademarks and related counterclaims. It is not a worldwide ownership award, though.

Even so, the Aviator side wants to rely on findings from the Georgian proceedings in England. The legal question is called issue estoppel: whether a court can stop a party from arguing again a point another court has already decided. Spribe disputes that the Georgian findings have that effect.

In May 2026, the High Court first accepted Spribe’s argument on which law decides that question. On 2 October, however, the Court of Appeal reversed it and held that English law governs the possible effect of the Georgian judgments. Even so, it did not decide that the Georgian findings bind the English court. Nor did it rule on ownership or infringement.

The $330 million figure and the Flutter settlement

Some earlier trade reports gave the Georgian damages figure as €330 million. By contrast, Flutter’s Q3 2024 filing describes a judgment of GEL896 million, then about $330 million, against Atlas Holdings LLC, the Flutter company that runs Adjarabet. So Spribe is not the defendant named there.

Later, Flutter’s 2024 annual report states that the dispute was resolved by 31 December 2024, with an agreement to reimburse an immaterial amount of legal costs. That settlement, however, covers Flutter’s dispute only. It did not end Spribe’s separate litigation.

The amount, the defendant and the settlement all come from Flutter’s filings alone. No court record we reviewed shows an order for Spribe to pay $330 million.

How Aviator compares with the crash games we track

The shared idea is simple: a multiplier rises, and players try to cash out before it crashes. Still, Spribe’s Aviator, the rival Aviator Studio game and casino-original Crash games are separate products, with their own rules, branding and verification methods. A shared mechanic does not make two games the same product, and it does not decide who owns either one.

Our Stake Crash tracker and Shuffle Crash tracker record settled rounds for those two games. They show how a crash game’s history can be examined, but neither one tracks Aviator. Therefore, results from one crash game say nothing about the history of another.

Provable fairness is a separate question again: whether you can check a round’s result against the game’s published process. It does not decide who owns a logo, and it does not remove the house edge. Our provably fair verifier checks supported casino originals, but it does not support Aviator. For background on fairness checks and casino trust, see our guide to crypto casinos.

What happens next in the Aviator lawsuit?

NEXT.io reports an April 2027 preliminary trial on the effect of the Georgian judgments, followed by the October 2027 main trial. Those dates replace the older expectation of a trial in late 2026 or early 2027. Still, they are scheduled hearings, not a promised end to the dispute.

For players, the practical point is the supplier named in the casino lobby. The word Aviator alone does not tell you whose game it is, which rules apply or how its rounds are verified.

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