Kentucky Governor Seizes Online Gambling Domain Names

from the can't-have-competition-for-horse-racing dept

Wed, Sep 24th 2008 7:48am — Mike Masnick

It's always fascinating to watch US politicians act as complete hypocrites when it comes to gambling. They talk about moral issues on why they need to stop online gambling, but allow their own personal favorite types of gambling, such as horse races and lottery. Kentucky, of course, is a big horse racing state, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that the state has strict anti-online-gambling laws. These laws are so strict that the state's governor is using them to seize 141 domain names of sites that the state claims are used for illegal gambling. Of course, it appears that many of the domains aren't online gambling sites at all, but parked domains. The state doesn't seem shy about the fact that it's doing this to "protect" the horse racing business, but of course, throws in the moral argument as well:

"Illegal Internet gambling poses a unique threat to our Commonwealth. For individuals - particularly our youth - it is tantamount to a virtual home invasion. For some of our vital and most venerable legitimate enterprises, it undermines their exemplary regulatory compliance and siphons away their constituents."

Home invasion? Really? A parked domain is the equivalent of a home invasion?

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Filed Under: domain names, gambling, governor, kentucky, online gambling

42 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2008 @ 8:05am

I wonder...?
Did he seize kentuckyderby.com?
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Evil Mike, 24 Sep 2008 @ 8:05am

Home Invasion
Yes, a parked domain is equivalent to home invasion,
and seeing tits will ruin a child's mind forever...
and playing video games will make you emulate them...
(it's true, I emulate Tetris all the time).
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Skeptical Cynic (profile), 24 Sep 2008 @ 8:36am

I wonder if the EFF will step in on this.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2008 @ 8:37am

Yea, I've never seen people lose their marriages, house, and kids through gambling sites - that never happens.

and whether their techniques are effective or useful is one thing. But he specifically said "Illegal Internet gambling poses a unique threat to our Commonwealth. For individuals - particularly our youth - it is tantamount to a virtual home invasion..." He didn't refer to a specific site or set of sites or even the ones that he seized...I wish you'd stop twisting peoples words.
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Jack Sombra, 24 Sep 2008 @ 8:40am

Would say the timing of this is linked to the recent indications that US is about to legalise the whole online gambling thing again.

Those sites will dramatically increase in value if they do. State will hold on to them for a while, then when gambling is legal again, auction them off (in a auction that no one but the governors cronies will know about of course), and the winners of these auctions will flip them to gambling companies that donate heavily the governor and party at a greater profit (thou still below market value). Thus neatly side stepping any "bribery", lobbyist or campaign funding debates
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2008 @ 8:41am

Re:
No one is twisting words -- those are the exact words the Secretary spoke. I wish you'd read and comprehend stuff -- but, oh, you're from Kentucky. Never mind about the reading and comprehending stuff.
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William Tuttle, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:03am

Re: Home Invasion
To be fair, how much harder has it become to focus on work since you first saw tits?
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Evil Mike, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:09am

Re: Re: Home Invasion
You've got a point there...
But then, it gets easier as I get older.
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Duane, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:12am

It's never a good idea to call out a whole state
based on one guy's comments. I'm actually a fan of this site in general, but in this instance, an important part of the message was skipped over (I'll attribute it to lack of quality control as opposed to sensationalistic spin)

The quote actually says "asking the court to force the sites to block access to Kentucky users or give up control of their domain names." block access or give up control. Big difference there.

It's still a stupid, hypocritical idea from my governor, but then I have no illusions about what my state will do to protect horse-racing. Which, btw, is a lot more fun than online gambling. I highly recommend it having done both on a fairly regular basis.
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Bob3000, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:13am

More republican hypocrisy.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:15am

Re: Re: Home Invasion
tits on the internet?!?! where?
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Anthony Mullins, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:15am

Ha Ha Ha
Don't they need electricity for online gambling?
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jonnyq, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:18am

Re:
except that the Kentucky governor is a Democrat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Beshear

Nice try, though.
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DS, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:22am

Re:
And who's fault is it if someone "lose[s] their marriages, house, and kids through gambling sites"?
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DS, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:23am

Re:
More knee-jerk reaction blaming the 'other' party.
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Overcast, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:41am

Yea, I've never seen people lose their marriages, house, and kids through gambling sites - that never happens.

Yeah, doesn't happen with Horse Racing gambling either, for sure.
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Tony, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:42am

"Seized"?
FTA: "Beshear has filed a civil suit against the 141 domain names and is asking the court to force the sites to block access to Kentucky users or give up control of their domain names."

This is both better and worse than Mike reports.

Better, because he hasn't actually seized the domain names. He has filed legal action to force them to block users from the state.

(I can't help but wonder where those domains are registered. I'll bet most of them aren't registered to companies in Kentucky. For that matter, I'll bet most of them aren't even in the US.)

Worse, in that if this goes any farther, it will legitimize this tactic. And it's actually in the realm of possibility that the court might side with the Governor - which is a frightening thought.
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Francis the Mule, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:44am

Sounds like horsepocrisy to me.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:49am

Re: Re:
First of all, there only seem to be a handful out of the 141 domains that were parked. Secondly the governor's secretary refers to illegal online gambling, Mike refers to the governors reaction to the problem.

You wish I would read and comprehend "stuff" - I wish you could possible keep up.
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KJ, 24 Sep 2008 @ 9:57am

"Beshear has filed a civil suit against the 141 domain names and is asking the court to force the sites to block access to Kentucky users or give up control of their domain names." China, anyone?
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Hulser, 24 Sep 2008 @ 10:08am

Re: It's never a good idea to call out a whole state
The quote actually says "asking the court to force the sites to block access to Kentucky users or give up control of their domain names." block access or give up control. Big difference there.

You make a good point, but this quote from the original article does indicate that "seize" is appropriate...

"Kentucky is the first state to bring action against Internet gambling operators that has resulted in the seizure of domain names. By seizing the domain names, Kentucky can require the illegal casino operators to block their domains from being accessed in the state."

This makes it sound like they are actually seizing the sites, but that they are doing so in order to block access from KY. Perhaps a web techie can help out here, but I didn't think you actually had to own the domain (which is what is implied by seizure) to block certain locations (or, more specifically, ranges of IP addresses).
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2008 @ 10:16am

Re: Re: Re: Home Invasion
Or is that as the tits get older?
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2008 @ 10:19am

Re: Re:
Obviously the government's, taxpayer's, or anyone but themselves.
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Anon Cow, 24 Sep 2008 @ 10:49am

Kenny Rogers wants his domain name back!
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Common Sense, 24 Sep 2008 @ 12:01pm

Missing a big one...
Keep in mind, the largest form of legalized gambling, which is mostly facilitated by the internet nowadays, is the stock market.

It seems to me that if someone wants to risk their money, and has to decide between stocks, horses, and poker, poker could be a safer bet in some instances...
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Derek Kerton (profile), 24 Sep 2008 @ 12:32pm

"Siphon" Is the New Term For 'Compete'
"Siphons away their constituents".

Yeah, the same way Pepsi siphons away the constituents of Coke. But in that case we call it competition.

Hooray for goverments making our consumer choices for us! Here's to goverment supported monopolies! Up with the one-product-per category regime. Long live Brezhnev!
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Faxbo, 24 Sep 2008 @ 1:18pm

I hate gambling, but censorship is intolerable. The government should have no business in blocking access to websites it doesn't like. If people want to gamble their money away that is their right to end up in poverty.

But then we all know that everything these guys do is to protect the big money interests, in this case real world casinos and horse racing. It's hypocrisy and the voters of Kentucky should recall this scumbag.
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Eastern Kentucky, 24 Sep 2008 @ 4:41pm

Beshear's big campaign issue was bringing casino gambling to the state. He was heavily supported by gambling interests. During the campaign there was a group called the Blue Grass Freedom fund that was given a 1 million dollar donation by corrupt a casino owner that wanted to open a casino in Northern Kentucky. The Blue Grass Freedom Fund was supposedly an ethics reform advocacy group.

After he was elected Beshear casino gambling went down big because it was so tainted by the money the gambling interests has put into the election.

http://www.kentucky.com/329/story/283928.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-23-3450829309_x.htm
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yeah_I_live_here_too, 24 Sep 2008 @ 5:28pm

Beshear's BS
Eastern Kentucky's comment is dead on, almost. The gambling initiative also failed because the governor proved incompetant at negotiating the kindergarten mentality of the Kentucky Legislature, whose partisan posturing makes his look nigh statesmen-like. This is about the horse-heads and lobbyists who bought influence getting the effect they paid for. The turf crowd owns a big enough slice of the legislature, that they can muscle-up on anyone they want. They want a piece of the online money, and are shaking down the casinos because they can.
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gambling, 24 Sep 2008 @ 10:32pm

onlinegambling
Pretty scary. But it's a important info regarding registration of gambling sites. There are few fake sites who run on URL's of true sites. Because of these 141 domains other sites also suffer who pay tax in time.
So,in this case what are the responsibilities of the registrars? I look forward for your answer.
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Anonymous Cowherd, 24 Sep 2008 @ 11:29pm

Total BS
"Illegal Internet gambling poses a unique threat to our Commonwealth. For individuals - particularly our youth - it is tantamount to a virtual home invasion."

I think Will Smith has exactly the right response to this kind of nonsense:

ahh, ahh, AHH-CHOO!

I'm sorry, I'm allergic to bullshit.
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JackpotCity, 25 Sep 2008 @ 6:59am

Re: "Seized"?
I see that two domains have already changed ownership, HighRollersLounge.com and LuckyPyramidCasino.com.

The proud new owner is the Commonwealth of Kentucky Justice Cabinet's Eric Lycan.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Sep 2008 @ 8:12am

If it helps to reduce spam that might have been for these sites, I'm all for it!
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Jimmie, 25 Sep 2008 @ 8:40am

Re:
The governor of Kentucky is a DEMOCRAT.
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Jeff, 25 Sep 2008 @ 1:44pm

This is what KY does.
I live in IN and work in KY. *sigh*...this is how KY operates. Good 'Ol Boy's network. You should've seen it a couple of years ago when they BAN smoking in public places. Get this, they banned smoking in PUBLIC places EVERYWHERE!, with the exception of Churchill Downs! I am serious. They blow so much horse c@ck it's scary here. But then it was of course appealed and because they knew they would lose, they didn't really defend it much. Instead they re did it this time INCLUDING Churchill downs to be non-smoking and now it's a non smoking state. The kicker is that as you might imagine, they ticket/fine people like crazy for smoking in public places with of course the exception of CHURCHILL DOWNS. They never really enforce it there. Hello Internetians, welcome to good 'ol KY. I'd burn this place to the ground if I could. *sigh*

/end rant
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j davis, 26 Sep 2008 @ 7:15am

Since most of the sites are located outside of the US they will probably ignore any ruling as they should. This is nothing but political posturing and hypocrisy since the Gov has ties to the casino industry. The old 'we have to protect the children' is bullshit of the first order. I can't believe this guy is a democrat! Why does the government insist on violating the right to privacy of it's citizens. This is an unnecessary waste of taxpayer resources.
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Anti Communisn, 7 Oct 2008 @ 6:03am

USA USA USA
so communism or is that Hitler is alive and well in the good old USA no self thinking allowed no self choices allowed he people will do as they are told and not question it its a slippery slope folks tread carefully
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Nov 2008 @ 10:57am

Re:
Yea, I've never seen people lose their marriages, house, and kids through gambling sites - that never happens.
Same thing happens with people gambling on the stock market. I wonder how stock broker domains the governor seized.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Nov 2008 @ 11:04am

Re: It's never a good idea to call out a whole state
The quote actually says "asking the court to force the sites to block access to Kentucky users or give up control of their domain names." block access or give up control. Big difference there.
Do the impossible or give up their domain names? That boils down to give up their domain names, period. No difference.
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