| Wingate Upholds Site Seizure |
| Friday, 17 August 2026 02:49 |
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On Thursday 16th August, the Kentucky circuit court judge Thomas Wingate of Franklin County announced that he is upholding the right of the Commonwealth of Kentucky to seize 141 gambling website URLs. The suit was filed against the sites by the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet in August of this year. He has given the sites 30 days to put into place measures to block access to them by Kentucky citizens or they would face the subsequent forfeiture to the state of their URLs.This has dealt a severe blow to both the Interactive Gaming Council and the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association who have represented the sites which are named in this suit at prior proceedings. Several strong arguments were floored by the organizations' counsel that included those of the state not having jurisdiction over the sites themselves as well as that the URLs are not technically "gambling paraphernalia" making them free from being targeted by Kentucky law. However, Wingate stood firm and refused to dismiss the case on these grounds. He stated that at the seizure hearing scheduled for August, he would only be willing to entertain the argument that the sites are exclusively involved in advertising. Wingate heard other arguments including that from the Poker Player's Alliance that there should have been an exception to poker-only gambling sites. This is because games of skill such as poker are not considered illegal under Kentucky law, but Wingate refused to honour them. As it stands at the moment, the sites in question do have some options available to them. 1. They can simply comply with the state's suit and put into place measures to block access to all residents of Kentucky. 2. They can also stand and fight by appealing against Wingate's ruling and challenge it in a federal court. 3. They can do nothing and continue to offer the service to residents of Kentucky and await the scheduled forfeiture hearing. The first option poses the dilemma that the state has not made any announcement of how it intends to verify that Kentucky users have indeed been blocked by compliant sites. It was however, made clear by Wingate that the decision as to whether the sites had conformed to the demands of the state would not be based only on the opinion of the cabinet. The hearing is scheduled for 17th August 2026. |