he Secretary of the state’s Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, J. Michael Brown, released a statement late last week revealing that an appeal would be lodged against the ruling and that the administration would be taking the matter to the Kentucky Supreme Court.
“The evidence demonstrated that illegal and unregulated activity is occurring in Kentucky and that millions of dollars are being lost as a result of that activity, a fact that wasn’t disputed in Tuesday’s ruling,” said Brown.
In a two-to-one decision, the Court of Appeals ruled against the state last January 27th, overturning an earlier decision by Judge Thomas Wingate of the lower Kentucky Circuit Court.
In her majority decision, Judge Michelle Keller found that the domain names in question, which included AbsolutePoker.com, BodogLife.com, CakePoker.com, DoylesRoom.com, FullTiltPoker.com and PokerStars.com, had never been classified as illegal gambling devices under Kentucky law, as was claimed, meaning that the state could not rightfully proceed with the seizures.
“Kentucky residents should be outraged that the Commonwealth is investing another minute of time and another dollar of scarce resources in this quixotic case,” said John Pappas, Executive Director for the Poker Players Alliance.
