By Liam Eagle, theWHIR.com
September 29, 2008 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — At a hearing held Friday, a Kentucky judge denied the state government’s attempt to seize 141 domain names associated with Internet gambling sites.
According to a report this weekend by the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Stephenie Steitzer, judge Thomas Wingate asked that attorneys representing the state and the owners of the domain names in question submit briefs describing the issues involved in the case, which he would need some more time to understand fully.
Last week, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear launched a civil case against the long list of domains – including such properties as sportsbook.com and pokerstars.com – last week, claiming they were involved in illegal activities. Judge Wingate initially ordered the domains transferred to the state, pending objections from the domain owners.
Later in the week, objections from almost all of the sites had been filed, as the case, and the initial ruling, sparked a considerable online controversy. As of Friday, two domains whose owners failed to oppose the ruling had been transferred to the state, highrollerslounge.com and luckypyramidcasino.com. Neither site is accessible via its domain, though the Kentucky government has said it did not shut down the sites.
According to the Courier-Journal report, about two-dozen attorneys representing gambling industry associations and Internet commerce groups attended Friday’s hearing. The defense reportedly argued that Wingate should dismiss the case. While they weren’t fully successful in that regard, they appear to have convinced him that further deliberation is in order.
The state’s goal in filing the civil suit was originally to block access by Kentucky residents to the sites, which Bashear notably described as “leeches on our community.” The “leeches” statement refers to the millions spent by Kentuckians on online betting sites, which are not hosted locally and contribute nothing to the state in terms of tax money or other fees. State-sanctioned gambling, particularly at horse racing tracks, is a big business in Kentucky. And Bashear is reportedly a proponent of state-sanctioned casino gambling.
The Courier-Journal article quotes Kentucky Justice Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown, who says the case has succeeded in getting the attention of gambling sites, which might be more likely at this point to hear the state’s demands that the sites block access by Kentucky residents.
