Gambling Associations Did Disservice to Owners in KY Case

The Kentucky Supreme Court reversed the Kentucky Appeals court's decision that tossed out the seizure order issued on 141 online gambling domain names this past week.

None of the representatives from the betting firms stepped forward to appear in court.  Instead they were represented by two industry trade organizations: The Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association (iMEGA) and the Interactive Gaming Council (IGC).

The Supreme Court ruled that neither trade organization held "standing" and, in order for the domain holders to prevail, they would have to appear physically before the court or identify themselves via signed affidavits.  To date, none of the online gambling company owners have even identified themselves as being members of either trade organization. 

Howard Neu, commenting on TheDomains.com website writes:

"Although the Kentucky Supreme Court did not deal with the real issues involved in this case, it IS correct in its holding if not one Registrant of the seized domains was actually represented in court. The Gambling Association did a disservice to its members by refusing to identify owner members.

"Hopefully, they'll get the message and one or more owners will come forward and acknowledge the representation."

TheDomains.com points out that the Supreme Court found that Domain Names like real estate cannot be represented, only the owners can be represented and they were not named by the trade groups.

iMEGA is believed to be in the process of securing signed affidavits from its members after long promising anonymity, however, the Kentucky case has seemingly thrown a wrench into that objective.

Gambling911.com Staff