Kentucky Online Gambling Faces New Opposition

December 21, 2014 by

Kentucky Online GamblingThe state of Kentucky has an interesting relationship to gambling of all types. Now Kentucky online gambling is under attack from State Senator Mike Wilson who is pre-filing a bill that would stop online casinos in general. Wilson is going after gambling shops that run using online games in the state after saying they are taking away play from charity-based games and those ran by veterans groups like the VFW and American Legion. He’s not strictly wrong about that, but the general feeling among industry experts is that his play to ban all online play is largely misguided.

The Attack on Kentucky Online Gambling

There’s a certain type of betting shop that’s shown up a lot in the south-east United States. Essentially, these shops are business fronts that use specific types of software that often bypass state laws against gambling to give people a chance to get in on the action with different types of betting games. These typically take the form of slots and other similar games. Because they often operate in a grey area of the law, there’s not usually anything reasonable that can be done against them short of changing gambling laws like Wilson is trying to do here.

Should These Shops Be Targeted?

One question to ask is if these shops should be targeted in the first place. It really depends who you ask, but regulating the would typically be a better approach because it allows people to enjoy the games they want while also generating funds for the state governments. It also avoids black market types of scenarios, and it provides a state-run framework for protecting against underage gambling and problem gambling.

Mike Wilson’s approach to outright ban online gambling is misguided at best, though a large part of it is surely a political move. These betting shops are easy to attack, so if something doesn’t change, this could stop online gambling in the state of Kentucky before it’s given a chance to actually start in the general sense.

posted in Casino News • No Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.