Kentucky Governor to Appeal Online Gambling Decision

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear is digging his heels in with the announcement the Commonwealth of Kentucky will appeal the appeal in its attempt to seize 141 gambling-related domain names.The state, “a haven for gamblers who want to bet on horse racing” as reported by the McClatchy Newspaper the Lexington Herald-Leader, obviously has no qualms with gambling. However its inability to regulate online gambling, and hence make money out of it, obviously does cause it some heartache.This is even more so when The Associated Press reports:
House Speaker Greg Stumbo made his initial pitch for legislation that would allow more gambling at Kentucky horse tracks, which raised concerns among gambling opponents, including the head of the state’s largest Protestant denomination.One can only see this attempt to seize the gambling-related domain names as one about protecting revenue and not anything to do with morals.The appeal of Tuesday’s ruling by the Kentucky Court of Appeals that said the state does not have the authority to seize the 141 domain names will be taken to the Supreme Court according to a statement by J. Michael Brown, secretary of the state Justice and Public Safety Cabinet.”The Commonwealth will continue its action to protect Kentucky citizens from illegal Internet gambling operations, and appeal the recent Court of Appeals ruling to the state Supreme Court,” Mr Brown said in a statement issued on Wednesday.””The evidence demonstrated that illegal and unregulated activity is occurring in Kentucky, and that millions of dollars are being lost as a result of that activity, a fact that wasn’t disputed in Tuesday’s ruling.”However the appeal was labelled a waste of taxpayer’s money by John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance.”Kentucky residents should be outraged that the Commonwealth is investing another minute of time and another dollar of scarce resources in this quixotic case,” Mr Pappas said. “The appeals court’s sound rejection of the Commonwealth’s case should have ended this legal debacle in its tracks.The 2-1 ruling by the appeals court on Tuesday struck down the original decision by a Franklin Circuit Court order.