Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear has taken action against those who offer online gambling and poker to their residents. State officials recently launched a lawsuit against Full Tilt Poker which is a poker site that offers gaming to United States residents. The state is demanding that Full Tilt pay back losses to their residents for the past five years.
J. Michael Brown the Kentucky secretary for justice has issued a lawsuit against the owners of 100 domain names who offer online gambling services in the United States. The suit does name Pocket Kings which is based in Dublin and thought to be a co-owner of Full Tilt poker.
A statement was released recently in which a spokesperson for Brown stated: “through the course of the litigation, attorneys were able to confirm the identities of one of the owners.”
Kentucky has attacked online gambling sites before and Beshear has become relentless in trying to seize domain names of 141 online poker and gambling sites. In the first case against the online poker and gambling companies the Kentucky Supreme Court stated that for them to rule in favor of the online poker sites at least one official owner of the site would need to be present physically when presentations were made in court. The sites have only been represented by industry interest groups such as the Poker Players Alliance.
The state of Kentucky justified the recent lawsuit with the following statement: “the Commonwealth is entitled to sue and recover triple the value of the money lost during the statutory period between March 25, 2005 and September 25, 2009 (the five year period preceding this Complaint but excluding the recent six months) by person located within the borders of Kentucky.”