The BLBlog

Sometimes state agents and even federal revenooers bust up stills making illegal moonshine. Sometimes, vice squads raid crack parlors, brothels and other houses of ill repute.

In Kentucky, they’ve gone to court to crack down on illegal online gambling.

Yep, the commonwealth of Kentucky now owns the domain names of numerous illegal gambling sites (141 to be exact), after a judge ordered their seizure yesterday.

By seizing the domain names, Kentucky can require illegal casino operators to block their domains from access by Kentuckians.

Gov. Steve Breshear noted in a press release that the state loses tens of millions of dollars each year to unlicensed Internet gambling operations.

Those operations undermine and threaten horseracing, “Kentucky’s signature industry and a key tourism industry,” he said. That must be the reason that Kentucky, first and so far alone among the 50 states, has gone after Internet gambling this way.

Lots of interesting legal issues to note, though, including state ownership of Web sites, status of domain names as property, jurisdiction, online blocking, among others. A brave new world, indeed.

By Paul Fletcher