Kentucky Man Gambling His ESPN Online Pick Brings $1,000,000
ESPN began a contest in the fall, giving participants a chance to win one million dollars. In order to win, a contestant had to make twenty-five selections correct in a row, choosing to make picks from an array of daily proposals listed on the site.
Now one player is a single pick from winning the jackpot, and it becomes more interesting because he is from Kentucky. As online gambling enthusiasts know, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear is in the process of attempting to seize the domain names of 141 online casinos. Beshear rationalizes his move as protecting the loss of untaxed revenues from his state to other regions.
But now, ESPN stands to potentially pay Jordan Fulkerson of Kentucky a million dollars for making sports picks online. Granted, there was no consideration or price that Fulkerson had to put up. But certainly Connecticut, where ESPN is based, now may watch money leave the state, only to be taxed in Kentucky.
Perhaps Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell would want to think about seizing the ESPN domain name. After all, Beshear is establishing a precedent, that any government unhappy with the direction of Internet commerce may choose to shut down the offending site.
According to ESPN, during his streak, Fulkerson has picked seven NBA games, six college football games, six NFL games, two golf tournaments (Davis Love with a better nine-hole score than Chris DiMarco on Oct. 30 and Billy Andrade with a better nine-hole score than Carlos Franco on Oct. 31), a rugby game, a soccer match and the presidential election (where he had Barack Obama straight up over John McCain on Nov. 4).
