ATLANTA -- Georgia's top court unanimously ruled Monday against a Georgia couple who wanted NBC to repay them and other residents for the cost of sending 99-cent text messages to win a prize on the game show "Deal or No Deal."

Michael and Michele Hardin sued NBC, hoping to recover the text message charges they ran up playing the show's "Lucky Case Game," which challenged viewers to guess which of six on-screen gold briefcases was the lucky case.

The couple's lawyer, Jerry Buchanan, called the game an illegal gambling operation and said state law allowed them to retrieve money from a winner because "gambling contracts are void."

NBC attorneys, however, said it was a promotional tool and not a lottery. They also contended that the network was not the "winner" of the game, so should not be targeted by a legal challenge.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the text messages cannot be classified as a bet or a wager, and so residents were unable to prove there was a "gambling contract" needed first to prove a claim for the money.

The ruling, written by Justice Hugh Thompson, says that as a result, the law "offers no avenue of recovery to plaintiffs."

Calls to Buchanan and Joe Loveland, an attorney representing NBC, were not returned.

The NBC show, hosted by Howie Mandel, calls for a contestant to predict the amount of cash contained in any of 26 sealed briefcases. The top prize for guessing correctly is $1 million.

It is unclear what the ruling will mean for the "Lucky Case Game," which was also the target of at least one court challenge in California. NBC has halted the game since the lawsuit, and it is described on the show's Web site as "taking a short break."