Steve Beshear Seizes Website: NightMARE for Horse Gambling, Poker

Sep 23 2008 - 1:48pm

Even before Thursday's hearing to determine whether 141 online gambling would be seized by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Governor Steve Beshear apparently has wasted little time.

Gambling911.com broke the story Tuesday that LuckyPyramidCasino.com is now in the control of one Commonwealth of Kentucky Justice Cabinet Eric Lycan. LuckyPyramid registrar name was transferred this week to the state. The online casino was part of the popular Real Time Gaming software platform.

One of the largest online casino software companies, Microgaming, was believed to have representatives and executives in Barcelona this week for an online gambling conference catered to the European i-Gaming market. Microgaming, based in South America, was specifically named among the 141 domains Kentucky is looking to seize. Some of its licensees are also named.

Beshear's administration is looking to stomp out the horse racing industry online as a means of protecting is prized Kentucky Derby enterprise, however, a number of online casinos and poker rooms have also been named for good measure.

Online gambling affiliates, many of whom were also attending the gaming summit in Barcelona, were left worrying whether their entire revenue stream would be cut off should registrars be forced to pull the plug on dozens of domains.

The Kentucky Derby is the second most bet on sporting event in the United States after the Super Bowl, however, Derby betting interests this year rivaled that of the Super Bowl for the first time, according to Gambling911.com.

Edward Leyden, President of the The Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association, warned that such a "protectionist" statement is an "extraordinarily huge question of Constitutional inequity."

He explained that there was already an ex parte proceeding under the Kentucky forfeiture statute to discuss this matter but nobody within the online gambling industry was aware of it.

"That's okay because the law allows for this," he went on to say, but warned that Thursday will be the last opportunity for the industry to take a stand. "There needs to be someone from the industry present on Thursday. Who knows what the effect of the hearing before Judge Thomas Wingate will be? But we do know that an order will cast a dark shadow over these (Internet gambling) domains. Such an order would be extremely troubling to these companies."

iMEGA was in around the clock discussions with its legal counsel to determine the next steps to be taken in this matter. Those firms whose websites were named in the complaint were strongly advised to have legal representation at Thursday's hearing.

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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher

Submitted by C Costigan on Tue, 09/23/2008 - 13:46
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Comments

Freedom

Wed, 09/24/2008 - 09:48 — Guest
How about the fact, that the government state and federal is now buying your freedom away from you. The feds bought AIG, which holds many mortgages; you think the feds made this move to make a profit? They made this move to gain more power over personal freedoms. Kentucky has interest in less or no online gambling as it is host to the largest horse racing in the world. But since when can a state dictate to other states what its citizens can do. Be carefully about the web sites you visit, Big Brother may be (is) watching. I could rant on forever about the recent and not so recent actions of all levels of our governments. The bottom line is that our freedoms include the right to spend our money the way we like is slowly and effetely being, stolen, bought, and removed from us, The People.

It's already begun

Tue, 09/23/2008 - 15:58 — Guest
From the updated whois records and the fact that highrollerscasino.com and pyramidcasino.com are both down, i would say this "Novel Tactic" is meeting with a certain degree of success

Sorry, it was my bad

Thu, 09/25/2008 - 09:11 — Guest
I mistyped the High Rollers url, it was actually HighRollersLounge that swapped hands.

I diagree

Tue, 09/23/2008 - 15:13 — Guest
...."Such an order would be extremely troubling to these companies".... This is bull ish, the domains are merely the doorway into the business, a new name can be decided upon within minutes and the company visions readjusted..... For instance if, Poker Stars lost its domain...it could quickly change to poker-stars.com OR onlinepokerstars.com etc etc... These government "officials" have no idea what they are talking about, online gambling is not going anywhere anytime soon. Humans have been gambling for many thousands of years, WAY before Horse racing. Ever heard of cave chicken bone gambling for your female mates? That ish happened before Jesus was around. Get serious and get a life!!!!

You are wrong

Wed, 09/24/2008 - 05:00 — Guest
First of all I'm not sure it will be possible to buy such new domains as poker-stars.com or onlinepokerstars.com Secondly - from search engine point of view it's very big damage - to change domain, if the site worked some good years to promote itself with old domain in search engines