Online Poker Site Responds to Kentucky Case

PartyGaming has dealt a big hand in the ongoing legal battle between online gambling companies and authorities in the US state of Kentucky.

According to Poker News Daily, the company filed a motion to dismiss the complaints against it by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, citing "insufficiency of service of process, failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and lack of standing."

In its motion, PartyGaming argued that nothing in The Hague Convention allowed the state to effect service of process by send a copy of the summons and initial complaint via registered mail. It added that Kentucky's Justice Secretary J. Michael Brown had no right to bring about the lawsuit, as that right lay only with the attorney general.

Annals of a Lawsuit

Kentucky attorneys originally brought the suit against Full Tilt Poker to recover funds it says it lost to the site over illegal gambling activities. Since then, the suit has been amended to include other major gambling sites such as Party Poker.

The state has brought cases against more than 140 online gambling sites in total.

However, the case with PartyGaming is particularly interesting given that the company withdrew from the US market in 2006, following the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which effectively banned online gambling in the United States.