sorry bout your luck... beg away

I'm not going to enter this Travel act discussion but will mention in the Antigua Barbuda WTO case it was considered alongside the Wire Act and the IGBA relating to the cross border supply of gambling and betting services.

All were found by the Dispute Panel in conflict with GATS obligations.

the loosing players just dont post here and i bet atleast 50% of the people here saying they have 5figures are lying.

so no reason to feel bad.

but lets get back on topic.

In real news:

Bitar motion to stay granted.

Interestingly, Kentucky files motion to stay their in rem claims against Defendants. I can't open the document right now so can't comment on that any further.

If anyone can and/or cares to guess at the implications, gogogogo.

Thanks for this. I wondered what was going on with Kentucky.

Is it possible the USAO is making some agreement with them to drop their claims and receive some compensation in return from forfeiture in lieu?

does kentucky even know what they are potentially impeding against their own citizens?

Everyone just needs to call kentucky (the govenor/attorney general) daily. They'll drop the case if enough people call.

Good news then I take it

Kentucky is famous for ridiculous claims against internet companies. No surprise that they are being a pain.

Yes, that's possible. But that's not what this is or indicates. But that's still possible despite this. It seems all they are after is money, because in reality, what would they want with these domain names?

Based off of the quote below, I think they are asking the court to stay the entire DOJ vs. FTP proceedings. They want the Kentucky case tried first and they want it tried in Kentucky.

"[Kentucky] will respectfully move this Court, at a date and time convenient for the Court, for an order to stay this action in regard to the in rem defendant domain names pokerstars.com, fulltiltpoker.com, absolutepoker.com and ultimatebet.com in favor of the prior exclusive jurisdiction of the Franklin Circuit Court in Frankfort, Kentucky."

But did you see that the court said:

On appeal, the Fifth Circuit held that § 1952 did not make it a federal crime merely to cross a state line for the purpose of placing a bet, and reversed the convictions of the two Georgia residents because the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to show that they were anything other than customers of the gambling operation.
. . .
We agree with the Court of Appeals that it cannot be said, with certainty sufficient to justify a criminal conviction, that Congress intended that interstate travel by mere customers of a gambling establishment should violate the Travel Act.

Sounds like you're overvaluing the editorial syllabus and holding.

And they were rewarded with permission to continue pirating all the copyrighted material that third world countries pirate everyday of the week regardless.

I have a hard time believing that they were just lazy esp having read the motions which are hardly complex. Another speculation is that the claims so far addressed by the DoJ are viewed by the them as trivial to get rid of in the long run, but they have agreed to settle them with the claimants for some amount contingent on FT being sold. Now that it looks like that might not happen they have started the process of clearing them.

You're welcome to your opinion but in virtually every lawsuit I participated in over a 33 year period, a party in the position of the USAO would have attacked the claims at the earliest opportunity for the very reason that it will take a while to get them resolved. There's is just no reason to delay the process to have them dismissed. The facts and the legal positions aren't going to change.

And the publication of notice, its delay is truly negligent.

That makes perfect sense in the context of the law, if the business never crosses state lines, it's not an interstate business, if it wasn't Georgia I'd be surprised he ever got a guilty verdict to appeal.

The prosecutor tried to reverse the law to make travel/use of interstate facilities to gamble a predicate to turn a minor State gambling violation into an organized crime allegation.

But the court is talking about the customers; it is saying the law did not criminalize being a customer. The legislative history cited in footnote 6 is particularly clear on this.

idk I just find negligence to be an unlikely explanation. Having to wait 6 months to clear FTP's assets may not decrease their value much now, but that was not always true. This could have cost the DoJ millions of dollars. So for clarity, you don't think it's at all likely that these claims have been settled in principle?

I don't understand what would have cost the USAO millions of dollars nor do I understand what you mean by "settled in principle."

No they weren't. They asked, but the US backed out of GATS, mooting the question.

I was surprised to find while checking to make sure that Antigua's actually still fighting this as of April. Not that they have any chance of getting anywhere at this point.

I find it hard to believe that the deal hinges on anything but money and jail time.

I doubt Kentucky, todd terry or any other trivial obstacles could derail justice. Justice being players and everyone getting paid

At this point gbt>nothing. But who is to say gbt wouldn't default on his obligations. Just sucks that these negotiations are confidential.

If you're buying FTP, it's presumably worth more to you now then six months from now. The assets could be making you money instead of sitting dormant. The brand could be active instead of being forgotten etc.

By settled in principle, I mean if pokerstars buys FT the claimants have agreed to withdraw their claims for some amount of money. If PS is not buying FT, then there would seem to be no reason to settle the claims as this will take more then six months to wrap up anyway.

Maybe they presumed most of these cases would never win a judgement that they would have to worry about, but now they are ready to move the assets so they can't wait around any longer.

Anybody else think Kentucky is in for a quick payday (from DOJ or Stars) due to the desire to get everything wrapped up in the foreseeable future?

I agree with the time value thing but see it as a primary reason why the claim clearing process should have always gone at full speed.

It's always possible that the claimants have/will agree to sell their claims but that is not a certainty and that doesn't explain why MTD's weren't filed immediately (especially when at least one of the claims is very shaky).

That still leaves the delayed publication of notice; regardless of any other fact, that had to be done and earlier is always better.

I agree that they probably feel like they will eventually strike these claims, but if they don't have some kind of understanding with the claimants then why wait to strike them? I assume they moved to strike the Webb claim because there is no way you can come to an understanding on that matter because it would open a floodgate in the future.