Kentucky Hearing Update

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Franklin County Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate, holding a hearing concerning the gambling domain names seized by the state, today gave attorneys for the 141 sites, seven days to file legal briefs.

The next hearing will be held on October 7th.

The Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association (iMEGA.org) has been granted standing and issued a Motion to Dismiss.

“I have a good feeling about our Motion,” expressed Edward Leyden, President of iMEGA, who was on hand during Friday‘s postponed hearing. “County Judge Thomas Wingate is a very straight forward common sense judge and a thoughtful guy so we are in good hands.”

The commonwealth has asserted their case under a statute that makes it illegal from running gambling operations within the state that makes mention of “gambling devices” but does not implicitly discuss gambling-related domains.

There is a report that several attorneys for various registrars, including the registrar for GoldenCasino.com, were present.

GoldenCasino.com’s domain name was among a handful seized by the commonwealth. The prosecution also wanted guarantees that clients (domain name holders) would not switch to new URL’s prior to October 7.

Also on hand were attorneys for the Poker Players Alliance and the Internet Gaming Counsel.

According to reports the state is seeking two things: agreement by owners of the domain names to block access from the state of Kentucky and compensation for previous gambling activity from Kentucky.


About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  3. Bill Poser says

    The statute isn’t just “vague” about domain names. It is very explicit about what may be seized: “gambling records” and “gambling devices”, and gives a detailed definition of the latter. Since domain names are not “gambling records” or “gambling devices”, the statute provides no authority to seize them. I am amazed that the court even issued the temporary order. Did the court explain why it thought the statute applicable? (I discuss the details of this at: here.)