Kentucky Online Gambling Appeal to Use Quantity Over Quality

Lawyers representing the state of Kentucky in the ongoing online casino domain name case asked the state Supreme Court for approval to exceed a fifty-page limit on appeal briefs. The legal team, a group of private attorneys not including the Kentucky Attorney General, wants to submit an extra thirty pages for the court to consider.

The Kentucky Court of Appeals voted two to one that Internet gambling site domain names did not fit the definition of "gambling devices" as contained in state statutes. The consenting opinion also made the point that the law against gambling devices was a criminal statute, and could not used to support a civil action.

Apparently, the Kentucky lawyers need so much additional space to try to fit contorted views and strained fits of various laws and precedents to apply to the Internet action. The state's problem is that these laws were written before the existence of the Internet, and so do not envision the conditions applicable in an online world.

Judge Keller, in her majority opinion, wrote that it is up to the legislature to address such issues as technological change, and that, barring such action, it must be assumed that lawmakers declined to extend or amend the outdated laws.

The state also seems to have placed much of its fading hope on disqualifying the Interactive Media Gaming and Entertainment Association as a representative of the online gambling industry. Knowing the many weaknesses of their case, state attorneys hoped to use a hole card forcing owners of the online casinos to appear in person, perhaps to lure them into federal custody.

But Joe Brennan Junior, iMEGA chairman, pointed out on the organization's website that the US Supreme Court had rendered a definitive ruling in 1977 establishing the right of associations to represent members in court.

Legal observer Thomas Sessions said, "Perhaps the state's remaining hope is to so obfuscate the issue with an array of mismatched laws and unrelated topics that the Supreme Court simply rules in their favor out of bewilderment. It's a similar method to what has been done with the UIGEA by the Departments of Justice and the Treasury, and both are likely to suffer judicial defeat."