A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a $3 million lawsuit in which three gamblers claimed Foxwoods Resort Casino illegally withheld their mini-baccarat winnings.

In a “summary order” issued Wednesday in New York, three judges of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling that it lacked jurisdiction because Foxwoods and the Foxwoods employees cited in the suit were protected by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe’s sovereign immunity from such suits.

The tribe owns Foxwoods.

The gamblers — Chinese nationals Cheung Yin Sun, Long Mei Fang and Zong Yang Li — sued in U.S. District Court in New Haven in July 2014, claiming Foxwoods owed them more than $1.1 million they won playing mini-baccarat in December 2011, as well as $1.6 million they’d deposited with the casino to cover any losses.

Foxwoods claimed the three cheated by openly employing a practice known as "edge sorting," which involves recognizing the denominations of playing cards through identifying characteristics on the backs of the cards.

In their suit, the gamblers claimed Foxwoods could easily have thwarted their edge-sorting.

Among gamblers, Sun is known as the “Queen of Sorts.”

The appellate judges concluded that the lower court lacked “personal jurisdiction” over the defendants named in the suit “substantially for the reasons articulated in the District Court’s well-reasoned opinion.”

— Brian Hallenbeck