This past week saw a dramatic case being brought before the Kentucky 2nd Circuit Court. Governor Steve Beshear asked a judge to cut off access to 141 gambling Web sites by giving Kentucky control of the domain names.

The hypocrisy begins and ends with Gov. Beshear. One of the bullet points on a press release on the Governor’s website states, “The accessibility of the Internet, and the unregulated and private nature of Internet gambling, creates conduits for youths to log on and place wagers.” Yet KY citizens can certainly signup at TwinSpires.com to place wagers on horse racing. Thus, we have to ask, “Is this a calculated attack on Internet wagering?” Hardly. Horse racing can be done at the Twinspires from anywhere in Kentucky, yet the servers are located in Oregon. Betting across state lines (horse wagering does have a carve out in the US code) appears to be OK as long as the host is sanctioned by Kentucky racing.

He goes on to say that illegal Internet gambling deprives the Commonwealth of millions of dollars in revenue. But there are no casinos to place wagers in, no legal poker rooms and obviously no sports betting within the state’s borders. So, where are these missing millions of dollars to go in Kentucky – where are the outlets to play, where are the jobs that should be created?

In speaking with players and industry contacts in Kentucky, we found that this first-term governor used bringing land-based casinos to Kentucky as one of his major campaign points! The reasoning here must be that gambling is good, as long as it benefits the state coffers. On Feb 15th of this year, Beshear unveiled legislation that would allow casino gambling in Kentucky. However, this bill, designed to ammend the state constitution to expand gambling at Kentucky racetracks died in the Kentucky House without even coming to a vote. Yes, this governor wants to amend the state constitution for expanded gaming and at the same time block gambling. How can this be?

Ultimately, the governor can’t actually believe that this domain seizure is going to work. No one is that simple.

In examining the list of 141 domain names, one can easily see that this is only the tip of the Internet gambling juggernaut. There are thousands of gambling sites that are not listed and several companies that should not even be on the list. Several sites listed currently do not take wagers from any US citizens, let alone Kentuckians! In addition, even if the list was inclusive of every gambling website online, these sites are not going to sit by and let Governor Beshear ruin their party. They will simply put up new domains and alert their players . . . ’till the end of time. One casino site on the list, Golden Casino, has already put up a mirror domain and alerted all of their affiliates to being sending traffic to the new URL. Quick Gov., amend the list.

So, if it is not going to work, why waste the time of the legislature and the courts on all of this?

The bottom line is either protectionism or posturing or both. The governor obviously wants to protect the 4 billion dollar Kentucky horse racing industry. The greed and hypocrisy of trying to keep it all for themselves is clearly evident in an ever growing national and global economy. What will the Governor try to prohibit next? Since most toys are not made in Kentucky, perhaps he would not let them be sold there. Those toys did not create and jobs or generate any tax revenue to Kentucky, so send ‘em back to China! Perhaps it makes the good Governor look like he is trying to protect his citizens from the evils of gambling. But, with a flourishing 4B racing industry and a platform that included expanded gambling, the protection that he is trying to implement is not for the citizens, but posturing aimed at the Kentucky blue-bloods who own, train and race horses and, no doubt, contribute to political campaigns.

Give it up Gov.! Your veiled attempt to curtail gambling will not work and will simply cost your state legislators and attorneys valuable time and money that should be better spent on roads, schools health care and viable social programs aimed at improving life in your state.