This Christmas was certainly one worth celebrating at PokerStars as they received an appropriate present for this holiday. Namely, the court at Kentucky reversed their decision that The Stars Group should pay for the damage that they had allegedly caused. With that decision, PokerStars hopes that it will end a period of uncertainty for the company that has been lasting for the past couple of years and affected the online poker leader in many ways. According to them, it was not only a big financial problem for them but a legislative one. If they had been charged guilty that would have also represented a problem as there would have been a negative sentiment between them and the US state.
Marlon Goldstein is a chief legal officer at the Stars Group and he stated that he and the company applauded the decision of the Kentucky Court of Appeals that consisted of three highly-respected judges. Goldstein stated that the merits of the case had prevailed and that they were looking forward to leaving that matter behind them as they sharpened their focus on the future and executing their strategies for the growth of the company. There are a lot of things that happened in this case and it all started when Kentucky filed suit against the online poker giant as they sought damages and seizure of the domain name of PokerStars. They were not the only online poker company to have been accused, as Absolute Poker, Ultimate Bet, and Full Tilt Poker were also on the list.
In the end, Poker Stars was charged $870 million in damages, but it remains unclear to this day where that figure came from. Kentucky allowed the losses of people who participated in illegal gambling activities to be recovered and $18 million was given to the residents of that state. $290 million was the amount that judge awarded Kentucky along with treble damages. This was the time when Amaya, a parent company of PokerStars, had to enter the appeals process. After that, it was proven that the statute only relates to individual players who want to recover illegal gambling losses and not to the state. Once the Kentucky Court of Appeals heard the complete case, they changed their original ruling in favor of PokerStars. They stated that allowing a complaint such as the one which Commonwealth had put forth would lead to an unjust result. They added that it would mean that any private person who had a general knowledge of Appellant’s electronic gaming format could walk away a billionaire using a Loss Recovery Act. InsiderLouisville states that the success of the appeal was mainly due to the fact that the statute covered individual loses, and no individuals were present in the suit. In other words, it seems that this was just Kentucky trying to take advantage of an old law and make some profit for themselves.