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Kentucky's Beshear Admin Appeals Online Gambling Appeal Court Ruling
Thu, Jan 22nd, 2009 @ 12:00am
Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear's administration has quickly filed an appeal with the state's Supreme Court challenging the appellate court ruling made January 20th that prevented the state from seizing the 141 online poker and Internet gambling domain names.
In an unprecedented move last year, state Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Michael Brown, with the support of Governor Beshear, tried to seize control of 141 named Internet gambling sites, including online poker rooms PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Bodog and Absolute Poker.
The state alleged that the websites were illegal gambling devices, so subject to state seizure.
Franklin County Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate agreed last November, and issued a seizure order.
The seizure order was challenged in the state's Court of Appeals, in a suit brought by the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA) against Judge Wingate. A strong coalition of independent voices, who were given legal standing, was also heard in the appeals hearing, including the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), the ACLU of Kentucky and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The Appeals Court, in a 2-to-1 majority opinion, ruled in iMEGA's favor, saying the state's Circuit Court was wrong to view domain names as gambling devices, and that Kentucky lacks jurisdiction to block online gambling because state law does not define an Internet domain name as a gambling device, so gambling domain names are not subject to state authority.
Beshear's Admin Speaks Out
"The Commonwealth will continue its action to protect Kentucky citizens from illegal Internet gambling operations, and appeal the recent Court of Appeals ruling to the state Supreme Court," Justice and Public Safety J. Michael Brown said in a statement Wednesday.
"The evidence demonstrated that illegal and unregulated activity is occurring in Kentucky, and that millions of dollars are being lost as a result of that activity, a fact that wasn't disputed in Tuesday's ruling."
Tax & Regulate Repeats Online Gaming
Several officials within the online gambling community expressed hope that the state would drop the protectionist lawsuit and instead focus on the regulation and taxation of Internet gambling sites to generate revenues.
"Kentucky residents should be outraged that the Commonwealth is investing another minute of time and another dollar of scarce resources in this quixotic case," said John Pappas, executive director of the PPA. "The appeals court's sound rejection of the Commonwealth's case should have ended this legal debacle in its tracks."
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