The Commonwealth of Kentucky does not want to shut down Internet gambling anywhere but in the state, said a spokesperson for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, which last week won a court order to seize the domain names of 141 Internet gambling sites.
"Our goal is not to enforce our laws anywhere else except within the borders of Kentucky," Jennifer Brislin, cabinet director of communications, told IGamingNews via telephone Wednesday afternoon. "What we're specifically asking for is these sites to shut down access to Kentucky users and apparently there is readily available technology that would allow them to do that."
Ms. Brislin admittedly did not have working knowledge of the technology, but said in doing research for the case, the Commonwealth learned of software that could access specifically to users of one location -- Kentucky, in this case.
A forfeiture hearing originally scheduled for Thursday afternoon at the district court in Frankfort, Ky., has been continued until Friday at 3:30 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, Ms. Brislin said.
Ms. Brislin added that if the judge rules that forfeiture is warranted then what Kentucky is seeking is to have the site owners block access to Kentucky users and pay damages for operating in the state illegally up to this point.
"Our endgame is to block access within Kentucky," Ms. Brislin said. But our mode to do that is to capture those domain names and, if need be -- if that's not an option that those users take -- then we will at the end of the day shut down a site."
Emily Swoboda is the senior staff writer at IGamingNews. She lives in St. Louis, Mo.