iMEGA, Beshear set for Kentucky Supreme Court face off
Kentucky state governor Steven Beshear is to face off against internet freedom lobby group the Interative Media and Entertainment Gaming Association (iMEGA) in the Kentucky Supreme Court after iMEGA and other groups persuaded the Kentucky Court of Appeals to block an order by a lower court to have 141 Internet gambling domains seized.
KENTUCKY GOVERNOR Steven Beshear is to face off against the Interative Media and Entertainment Gaming Association (iMEGA) in the Kentucky Supreme Court after iMEGA and other groups persuaded the Kentucky Court of Appeals to block an order by a lower court to have 141 Internet gambling domains seized.
The order was blocked on the grounds that Judge Thomas Wingate had misapplied the state’s gambling devices law, and inappropriately sought a civil forfeiture of domain names from their rights holder.
iMEGA was joined in its suit by the Interactive Gaming Council, the Poker Players Alliance, the ACLU, the Centre for Democracy & Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Internet Commerce Association, eBay and Network Solutions. The oral arguments forCommonwealth of Kentucky v. IMEGA, et al will be heard at 11am on 22 October.
iMEGA’s chairman Joe Brennan said: “We’ve been waiting for this for a long time, and we’re going to win again. From the beginning, Kentucky law has clearly supported our position, and a win in the State Supreme Court will put the final emphasis on that.”
As reported on EGRmagazine.com, iMEGA last week failed in its bid to have America’s Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) online gambling ban declared unconstitutional by the US appeals court of Philadelphia after the lobby group challenged the ban on the grounds that Congress failed to clearly define online gambling in the law, making it “critically vague”.