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If you ask me, I'd prefer to remember Kentucky for their Whiskey than for megalomania. But seemingly, they want to change the world, or at least the poker world.
A court in this lovely US state just issued an order to seize 141 internet domains, all related to online gambling in general and specifically online poker. The list of domains includes the two world market leaders PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, both favourites of our community.
If they would succeed, it would of course not mean the end of online poker, but certainly it would be bad: especially rank-and-file players who tend to feed the industry (including our players and us) will probably miss the domains, and not all of them will be clever enough to find a navigational work-around. (Such as visiting other redirecting domains.)
But honestly: I bet they won't prevail! The Internet itself would be at risk as an idea if some random North American province could seize big and valuable domain because of violations of their law.
I wonder what would be next? China seizing Wikipedia.com? Okay, they would have a harder time, as "the Internet" is more probably to be effectively controlled by US authorities than anyone else. But still, it would be a very bad signal, rendering even the Chinese effort to block thousands of sites with the Great Firewall of China comparably harmless.
I for myself will now, as a token of my solidarity, play some symbolic hands of cash game. On both Full Tilt and Stars. And pray for Obamas victory.
