Kentucky seized gambling sites
Kentucky gambling

Kentucky has successfully won a suit against 141 gambling domains

A four year lawsuit against one hundred and forty one online gambling domains has finally ended in the favor of the commonwealth of Kentucky. One hundred and thirty two domains are to be forfeited to the state with the remainder, such as Poker Stars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker, who offer poker and online blackjack games, already undergoing a case with the US Department of Justice.

The case, which began in 2008, saw Kentucky law officials deciding that the one hundred and forty one sites were not doing anything to prevent the state’s gamers from gaining access to the gambling sites, and that they constituted “illegal gambling devices”. Kentucky law enforcement officials then declared that the domains were subject to seizure under Kentucky’s anti-gambling laws.

Several attempts were made on behalf of the domains to overturn Kentucky’s suit, namely by iMEGA (Interactive Media Entertainment and Gambling Association) and the IGC (Interactive Gaming Council). These were thrown out though on March 8th when Judge Thomas Wingate effectively ruled in favor of Kentucky when he stated that neither party had standing enough to contest any litigation on the case, and that none of the domains had done anything to prevent the states gamers from being able to gamble on the sites.

It has been reported in recent casino gambling news, that Judge Wingate demanded that a copy of the order issued in court be sent to Verisign and the domain registrars informing them of the decision and instructing them to transfer each of the 132 domains over the commonwealth. The remaining sites cannot currently be forfeited to Kentucky as they are currently embroiled in legal battles of their own.

In their own case, Poker Stars, Full Tilt, Absolute Poker and others have been given yet another extension by Judge Leonard Sand following their previous extension which is scheduled to expire at the end of March. Under the new extension the defendants will have until May 14 to respond to charges of illegal gambling and money laundering, which now includes the heads of all three sites.

The seizure of the three hugely popular sites was known as “Black Friday” and has been received hot coverage in the country since the story broke. It is widely expected that all three of defendants will lose their case, following a sudden massive influx of evidence from an Australian citizen who helped to process the illegal transactions for the domains.

There had been complaints by the defense that they hadn’t been allowed enough time to properly examine the new evidence, which is undoubtedly the reason for this new extension on the case. Kentucky may yet be hungry for more illegal domains to seize, but for the moment the fate of the other nine domains, lies firmly in the hands of the companies defenders against the US Department of Justice.