Another Online Casino Withdraws From Kentucky

Published on: December 8, 2008 

The citizens in the state of Kentucky are losing yet another group of online casinos to play at thanks to Governor Beshear’s attempts to ban all online casino gaming in his state and confiscate 141 online casino domains.  The state has already lost all of the casinos affiliated with Microgaming, and the company has already yanked all of the casinos from the United States as well.    Online casino game provider is now following Microgaming and has decided to ban all players from the state of Kentucky.  Whether or not they will lift the ban will depend on how the Kentucky case plays out over the next few weeks.  The Kentucky case has kept many online casinos on edge and hesitant to accept players from the state.

Tokwiro, which is regulated by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, decided that they were going to be proactive and protect themselves in case the Kentucky verdict goes bad to online casinos and rules against them.  Online casinos that ban players from the state are being allowed to keep their domain names, according to the lower court judge that granted the original motion.  Tokwiro is owned by a former Kahnawake chief.   

Legal experts in the field of online gaming and other matters feel that the decision will be overturned on one of numerous grounds ranging from infringement of constitutional rights of citizens to hampering free trade with other countries.  Most of the online casinos are run and licensed from outside the United States.  Additionally, if the courts rule in favor of the original motion, many online casinos are going to be left vulnerable and may have to rearrange their servers and online names if their domain name is confiscated.

Two of the most popular sites are owned and operated by Tokwiro: Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet.  Both online poker rooms have been the subject of exposes by ‘Sixty Minutes’, the popular news television show, about the online cheating scandals that have been plaguing them.  Recently the two poker rooms formed the CEREUS poker network, and they are the third largest online poker operators for players in the United States.  PokerStars and FullTiltPoker, who sponsor big names in the business like Phil Ivey, are the two top operators.

Whether or not Tokwiro will reopen their online gaming sites to Kentucky citizens remains to be seen.  The possibility does exist, but it will all depend on how the court case plays out.  If the case rules in the favor of the casinos, the ban will more than likely be lifted.

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