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Gambling Sites Balk at Kentucky’s Interference

The owners and operators of some of the one hundred forty-one online slot machine and casino gambling sites are reacting to the state of Kentucky’s attempts to pass protectionist legislation against the websites in a negative way, to say the very least. The initiative put forward by Governor Beshear would seize the domain names of the sites as “illegal gambling devices,” in a move that some legal experts are calling blatantly unconstitutional. Beshear’s attempt to shut down these casino sites on the World Wide Web was begun in an attempt to divert the alleged millions of dollars that Kentuckians are spending on gambling on online slots and other forms of casino diversions to the struggling state horseracing industry, one of the biggest in the nation.

The online casino reps are livid at Beshear and the state Legislature for making an attempt on their freedoms. They claim that Kentucky has no precedent on which to fall back on the topic of seizing internet domains. Lawyers retained by such gambling groups as The Poker Players Alliance are scoffing at Beshear’s stretching of the word “devices” to include domain names. Several have pointed out the fact that Kentucky’s own state lottery has an online component, so Beshear is being more than a bit hypocritical. Only time will tell what will come of Beshear’s ridiculous attempt to shut down these online slot machine and internet gambling sites. The industry has been forthcoming about their plans to immediately appeal if a decision is made in the state’s favor, and several internet hosting companies have said that they will not cooperate with any orders to close sites down unless legally ordered.

Back to October 2008 Archive.