Kentucky sues Full Tilt
The troubles aren’t ending for Full Tilt Poker, which is currently the subject of a grand jury investigation in Manhattan. According to news reports, the state government of Kentucky is suing the online poker site for losses it says its residents have suffered playing poker at the site.
Fortunately for Full Tilt, most legal experts are arguing that the suit will likely be unsuccessful.
Full Tilt Poker is operated by Pocket Kings LTD and is operated internationally and not by companies or agents in the United States, making such a case hard to win.
According to Stephanie Steitzer, writing in the Louiseville, Kentucky Courier-Journal, “Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration is attempting to use an obscure state law to recover losses incurred by Kentuckians who placed bets through web sites.”
According to this little-used and obscure law, the lawsuit claims the state will be able to recover three times the amount of money residents are estimated to have lost. That could be as much as $1 billion.
Louisville attorney John Fleischaker told the Courier-Journal that he thinks the suit is “very bizarre” and could give rise to a whole new argument that would say “that the transactions didn’t actually occur in Kentucky because none of the Web site operators are located here.”
Kentucky has a history of attack on online poker. In 2008, the state tried to seize more than 140 poker domain names by claiming that the sites were offering illegal services to the residents of Kentucky but was largely unsuccessful.
