Kentucky Online Gambling Soap Opera Continues

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It would not be incorrect to describe the legal proceedings in the Kentucky domain name seizure case as a soap opera. Every time one feels that a closure is round the corner there is a twist to the case and a new story unfolds. The Kentucky Supreme Court had indicated that if iMEGA produces a domain name owner in court it may receive a favorable verdict and iMEGA was able to do that. But before the Supreme Court could act, the lawyers for the State of Kentucky started a new innings with a fresh filing in the Franklin Circuit Court.

The State of Kentucky has lodged a claim against Pocket Kings for monies "lost between March 25, 2005 and September 25, 2009 by persons located within the borders of Kentucky." The claim was filed in the name of Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown as before. According to the filings Pocket Kings is the owner and operator of Full Tilt Poker, one of the 141 domains in the original seizure case. The filing runs into 14 pages and invoked Kentucky statute 454.210. This statute allows personal jurisdiction of the Kentucky courts over nonresidents against whom there is a monetary claim for acts committed in Kentucky.

The filing specifically refers to Section 2 (a) 3 of the above statute and claims that "The Full Tilt Defendants have done, or have caused to be done, tortious acts in the Commonwealth for which the Commonwealth has a substantial and compelling interest in exercising personal jurisdiction." The acts in question are the facilitating and soliciting poker play from Kentucky residents by having its software installed on computers within Kentucky and profiting thereby. The implication seems to be that the Kentucky players who lost monies while playing poker at Full Tilt have been caused injury to their financial property. The basis of this claim is the statement made by the IGC in the Court of Appeals in the domain name seizure hearings. IGC had mad an oral submission that 13,000 Kentucky residents play online poker.

The Kentucky lawyers have also stated that there are unknown individuals and entities who have acted in concert in joint ventures "to facilitate, host, operate, and profit from online gambling businesses". They have referred to the individuals and entities behind Absolute Poker, UltimateBet.com, Bugsy’s Club, Cake Poker, Crazy Poker, DoylesRoom, Golden Palace, Microgaming, MySportsbook, Pitbull Poker, PlayersOnly, PokerHost, PokerStars, PokerTime, Red Star Poker, Reefer Poker, Sportsbook.com, True Poker and WSEX. The list is not without errors of commission and omission indicating that the legal team has not done its homework well. Whether these errors will have a material effect when the case comes up in court is a moot point.

There has been no response from Full Tilt Poker to this development as yet.

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