January 21, 2009
Kentucky
court overturns gambling domain seizure
on appeal
The Commonwealth of
Kentucky sued 141 online gambling
websites for illegally allowing
residents of the state to gamble
online and asked the state to seize
all 141 gambling domains, unless
they stopped allowing KY residents
to gamble.
A
Kentucky court order authorizing the
seizure of 141 overseas domains has
been overturned by the the Kentucky
Court of Appeals. The court ruled
that the domain names, all related
to online gambling, do not fall
under the state's definition of a
"gambling device," and therefore
they cannot be seized under that
statute.
Franklin County
Circuit Court judge granted the
domain names to the state on the
basis that the casino domain names
could be considered gambling
devices, effectively giving the
state the right to seize them.
According to estimates by the
attorneys for the state.
The
state of Kentucky has a vested
interest in barring online gambling
sites from being accessible there,
as the state's own revenue is highly
dependent upon certain sanctioned
(and therefore taxable) forms of
gambling, such as the aforementioned
horse races. Because of this, it
seems likely that Beshear will look
for other ways to attack gambling
sites and ultimately take them
down—this could be done, for
example, by amending the state's
gambling statute to include domain
names. The EFF notes, however, that
even if the Kentucky legislature
were to do this—an idea that is
entertained in the Appeals Court
order—it would still run into
trouble attempting to seize those
from outside the state because of
lack of jurisdiction and First
Amendment concerns.
According to
estimates by the attorneys for the
state, over 13,000 Kentucky
residents gamble at online casinos.
Original Article:
Online
gambling sites ready to fight Beshear's
plan to block them
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