Kentucky seized more than 140 domain names that belong to online casinos and poker rooms last Tuesday at the behest of Thomas Wingate, Franklin County Circuit Court Judge. It was done after a suit against the sites was filed by the Public Safety Cabinet of Kentucky.

Steve Beshear, state governor, announced the suit at a press conference at the beginning of last week. The suit claims these online sites to block access to the state’s citizens or relinquish their domain names ownership to the Kentucky commonwealth.

Among the named sites are a number of outstanding casino gambling sites, such as Bodoglife.com, Fulltiltpoker.com and Doylesroom.com. Though, the suit is careful about sites which are subsidiaries of lawful establishments such as Twinspires.com owned by the Churchill Downs.

But at the moment the House of Representatives of the USA considers the Payment System Protection Act. If it were passed, it would undercut the suit of Kentucky by letting payment systems used for online gambling operate lawfully.

Kentucky is the first state that successfully brought action against internet casino gambling sites and took control of privately held domain names on lawful grounds.

Some consider Kentucky’s actions hypocritical, because the state support continuously horse racing and Beshear lobbies gambling for a long time. In 2007 Beshear proposed amendment to Kentucky constitution that would make land casino operation legal in the state. At that time, he claimed the $500 million in yearly tax revenue that casino operations could raise.

But Beshear does not consider the current suit to contradict his platform.
The European Union has already decried Wingate’s judgment as violating international trade agreements.