iMEGA Fights Against Kentucky Seizures: 2

Online casinos have been fighting to keep the domains seized by the Kentucky government in the recent months. The online casino association, iMEGA has recently released a petition and a motion to appeal the rulings made by the judge of Kentucky county, Judge Thomas Wingate. The company iMEGA may have a better shot at having their petition taken seriously due to the fact that they also received the aide of the Interactive Gaming Council (IGC) which is an international online gambling group that is based out of Vancouver, Canada. The two groups have a common theme in their petition and it is that the government of the state of Kentucky does not have jurisdiction to have the domains seized.

The two online casino organizations have made other claims as well; they say that the Kentucky courts have falsely applied the laws to permit the seizures. The state law is specific to certain “gambling devices” the question is whether the online casinos fall under that particular category or not. The next argument brought up by iMEGA is that the state of Kentucky is violating the Commerce Clause that is written in the US Constitution. They also believe that the Secretary of Justice and Public Safety, Michael J. Brown did not have the authority to make the calls that he did from the beginning.

The 141 seized online casino domains are not owned by individuals but by companies that are not located in the state of Kentucky. The governor of Kentucky, Gov. Beshear has been quoted giving negative comments about online casinos and even said that they are “leeches on our community.” iMEGA’s chairman has said “This matter has generated concerns across the online world about abuse of governmental power. Kentucky is opening the door for any government - state and local, foreign and domestic - to use what amounts to blackmail to achieve its ends. If this precedent is allowed to stand, it’s not hard to imagine a government like China utilizing this kind of seizure power to prevent free media, like the New York Times, from reaching their citizens.”