The Info Examiner

Great news has emerged from the U.S. state of Kentucky for online poker players everywhere!

The Kentucky Court of Appeals issued a ruling last week prohibiting the Franklin Circuit Court from enforcing its seizure order against the 141 domain names of internet poker sites that were seized illegally by the state of Kentucky.

In case you haven’t followed this story Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear seized 141 internet gambling domains, including those belonging to several major poker online rooms.

The Court found that Internet domain names are not a “gambling device” under Kentucky law and that the Franklin County Circuit Court’s ruling that these domain names constituted gambling devices that were subject to forfeiture was erroneous.

I have been following this case for a while and this is great news. If the state of Kentucky basically said since online poker is illegal in that state, they could seize the domain names of any online poker site, no matter where it is based, and shut it down.

This is, of course, illegal and if upheld would have allowed basically any government anywhere that doesn’t allow online poker to try and shut down any online poker site as long as anyone who lives in their jurisdiction was using it! This would have been preposterous and disastrous, and this is a victory for online poker players everywhere.