Kentucky Action Generates Heat

0 Comments   Email   Print

The civil action suit 10-CI-505 filed by the state of Kentucky against Poker Kings and unnamed other online gaming operators has claimed losses incurred by Kentucky players on these web sites. Scarcely a week has gone by and both sides have been firing salvos at each other through the media.

Gambling law expert I. Nelson Rose explained the law that the state of Kentucky has cited. In the instances of illegal gambling the winners cannot lawfully collect money from the losers. And if the losers have paid up then they can sue the winners for three times the amount. And, further, if the losers do not sue within six months then any third party can sue the winner. In this case the state of Kentucky is acting as the third party. Rose pointed out that the statute is an ancient one and has not been used for over a 100 years and should fail on that count alone. However, a spokeswoman for Justice Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown, in whose name the suit has been filed, countered that it does not matter how old a law is. What matters is whether the law is on the statute books. And since this law is still on the books it remains valid in the state of Kentucky.

John Pappas, the executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, opened attack on another front. He said that the continued attack on online gaming operators by the state of Kentucky is "a clear waste of state government’s scarce resources." The administration’s response to this argument was the state is not paying anything for the legal actions being taken. The law firm has accepted the case on the terms that it will get paid only if the state recovers damages.

Jon Fleischaker, a Kentucky attorney who works for the gambling industry, brought out another angle to the issue. It was his opinion that the lawsuit could not be brought by anyone besides the Attorney General of the state. He was referring to the fact that the state Attorney General Jack Conway’s office had reviewed the case and decided not to take it on. Fleischaker feels that this would be sufficient to invalidate the lawsuit.

There probably were online players from Kentucky, who had made losses in Internet gambling, and were now getting a whiff of the money claimed by the state. But Jennifer Brislin, a representative from Kentucky Governor Beshear’s office, brutally put an end to their daydreams. She told the ABC News Law & Justice Unit, "As far as the money is concerned, any losses that would be recovered would go to the commonwealth on behalf of its citizens, so an individual would not receive those funds."

News Item Tools

 Email     Print     Digg     Del.icio.us    StumbleUpon

Comments

 Add Comment

Add Comment

More News