iMEGA Fights Against Kentucky Seizures: 1

As we have previously reported there is a lot going on against online casinos in the state of Kentucky. The state of Kentucky has seized many domain names in relation to online casino gambling in the United States. As you probably already know gambling online is illegal in the United States as of 2006. The Kentucky county judge, Judge Thomas Wingate has had a winning record against most of these domains that have been seized over the past year. One company is really trying to fight for the right of their domain. The Court of Appeals of Kentucky received a motion to stay the forfeitures of the domain names seized from the company Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association (iMEGA).

The State’s Governor, Stephen Beshear is the person who headed up the investigation and seizure behind these online casino domains along side the Kentucky’s Secretary of Justice and Public Safety, Michael J. Brown. The reason why they seized all of these website domains is mostly related to the online casinos they are accused of running based out of the state of Kentucky. They also have an agenda to protect the state’s gambling industry. The land based gambling industry is legal in the state of Kentucky therefore it is a taxable business. The online casinos that they closed down will now not be competing with the land based casinos and then there should be more business for the brick and mortar casinos.

The online casino association, iMEGA has appealed the decision made by Judge Wingate and they should have their hearing in early December. Then there will be another hearing on December 12th in Louisville, Kentucky to reconsider the petition that was headed up by iMEGA. The chairman of iMEGA said, “We’re pleased that the Court of Appeals has given us the opportunity to challenge these seizures. The commonwealth has tried to take these domains for their own financial gain, violating Kentucky law, exceeding their jurisdiction, and setting a terrible precedent in the process.”