Kentucky receives bill to ban Internet cafes from offering sweepstakes games

Republican Senator Mike Wilson does not seem to like what is going on inside of the Internet Cafes. The senator has started a fight against Java Cafes, but only against those that offer some sort of online gambling. The unlawful activity in question is actually, internet sweepstakes games, a legal type of online gambling. Senator Mike Wilson has taken up Senate Bill 28 in an effort to stop cafes from offering internet sweepstakes games. Republican Senator Mike Wilson’s bill could perfectly outlaw establishments that offer this activity as, Java Cafes are supposed to offer only telephone and internet time. However, customers use this internet time to enter online sweepstakes, and therefore, this customer become a gambler who can even get payouts from the sweepstakes. The state Attorney General’s office, through Assistant Attorney General Matt James, has said: “They award a prize by chance in return for consideration. While they may appear to offer fair consideration for value received in the form of internet access, the consideration is merely incidental to the game of chance”.

Senator Wilson states that the cafes have been use as online gambling establishments, an activity that is against the law in Kentucky. There are some areas already, like Bowling Green, Hopkinsville, and northern Kentucky, which are experiencing the results of allowing Internet Cafes to offer online gambling services. These activities are damaging those who really are lawfully offering online gambling services: “If you look at the front of the cafes, it talks about faxes and copies, and it just looks like an internet Café type thing; so they pretty much have disguised themselves, or tried to be pretty nonchalant about it. To my understanding, I believe Knights of Columbus has actually closed down because they just did not have enough people coming to theirs. And it is cut American Legion’s by 40 percent of what their normal revenue is on those nights”.