Contrary to what was said in an early version of a press release, the Commonwealth of Kentucky is not done with PokerStarsand Full Tilt Poker. On the contrary, the Commonwealth is “actively pursuing its lawsuits against PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker,” while it appears to be finished chasing a few other, now defunct, poker sites.

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Last Wednesday, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear‘s office released a statement saying that the Commonwealth had settled its longstanding case against both PokerStars and Full Tilt. In that case, which dates back several years, Justice Secretary J. Michael Brown, on behalf of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, looked to seize the domain names of 141 online gambling-related sites, including PokerStars and Full Tilt.

On Wednesday, it had appeared that in exchange for $6.075 million, Kentucky had agreed to drop its case against those two sites. The money reportedly came from the U.S. Government, part of the $547 million that was paid to the U.S. Department of Justice by PokerStars in last year’s settlement (another $184 million was part of that deal as well, but was paid directly to Full Tilt Poker’s non-U.S. customers).

The Governor’s office corrected itself last Thursday, stating that the settlement had nothing to do with Full Tilt Poker or PokerStars. Instead, the Commonwealth had made a deal with the U.S. Government.

“As part of its efforts to curb unauthorized, unlicensed gambling, the Commonwealth intervened in two Federal lawsuits brought by the U.S. Government in New York and Maryland,” the new press release explained. “The Commonwealth and the U.S. Government cooperated with one another in those lawsuits to further their mutual objective of curbing unauthorized, unlicensed internet gambling in their respective jurisdictions as to the specific domain names that were seized.”

In the agreement, Kentucky let go of its seizure claims against absolutepoker.com and ultimatebet.com in exchange for $6 million. By relinquishing its seizure claim, Kentucky thus allows the U.S. Government to go after the domain names on its own. Additionally, the Commonwealth and the U.S. Government jointly auctioned off the domain names truepoker.com, doylesroom.com, and bookmaker.com. Kentucky made $75,000 from those sales.

For its part, the U.S. Government released its seizure claim against pokerstars.com, freeing up Kentucky to continue to go after the world’s largest online poker site.

“This settlement with the U.S. Government in the online gambling case increases our resolve to go after the bad actors in the online gambling industry which continue to run roughshod over the regulations designed to protect our consumers,” said Brown. “We will not rest until all these unauthorized companies are held accountable for their actions.”

There has been no indication that seizure claims against the remainder of the 141 domain names from the 2008 action have been released.

Despite Brown‘s (pictured) generic anti-online gambling statement, there was no real reason given for dropping the pursuit of absolutepoker.com and ultimatebet.com while continuing to go after PokerStars and Full Tilt. We’ll keep you posted on the latest.

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