Kentucky's "Sin City"

It may seem hard to believe now, but it wasn't all that long ago that Kentucky was one of the nation's top places to go for illicit nightlife, probably second only to Atlantic City at one point.

Between the 1920s and the 1950s, people didn't automatically think of Las Vegas when they thought of casinos and strippers, they thought of Newport, KY and its surrounding areas. Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack came to Kentucky to have fun, and most top entertainers of the day made Newport part of their touring circuit. Gangsters maintained near-total control of the city in a surreal Miller's Crossing-style milieu, with police and politicians looking the other way even to the point of total absurdity.

How absurd? Well, in 1951 the Kefauver Organized Crime committee asked Newport police chief George Gugel about it, and he swore on the stand that he had no idea that any gambling was going on in the city. This despite the fact that Newport was as world-famous for its gambling scene at that time as Las Vegas is today. From the Saturday Evening Post, March 26, 1960:

Rudelph Halley, chief counsel of the committee, asked the police chief if he wasn’t familiar with the fact that any local cab driver could take a customer to a gambling emporium in a matter of minutes. Gugel said humbly that never in his life had he ridden in a taxi.

After several equally unrewarding exchanges, Halley asked with some awe, "Would you be surprised to know there is gambling going on?"

"For me, yes, because I’ve never been in there," Gugel said virtuously. "All I know is what somebody told me."

A curious incident which took place a few years later revealed that during the interval Chief Gugel had become at least partially acquainted with the seamier side of his city. Some background information will be helpful in understanding what follows. It seems that for years the police force and the detective bureau had operated more or less independently and coordination of activities was often lacking.

In any case, detective Jack Thiem, for reasons still unknown, decided to raid Glenn Schmidt’s Playtorium, one of Newport’s better-known gambling spots. To witness and record the projected triumph of virtue over vice, Thiem invited a photograper from the Louisville Courier-Journal to accompany him—there is no local newspaper.

When Thiem and his companion burst into the casino, the officer was astonished and embarrassed to find Chief Gugel and three detectives from Thiem’s own office among those present. The photographer, of course, snapped a picture of the encounter, but it never saw publication. Gugel immediately placed the cameraman under arrest and destroyed the film.

And in 1958, The Louisville Times published a series of investigative reports on the rampant gambling, sleaze, sex and corruption going on in Newport. When Christian Seifried's Social Action Committee (a Christian faith-based "Clean up sin in Newport" campaign) presented these newspaper stories as evidence to Governor A.B. "Happy" Chandler, he dismissed them with, "We have no information of the truth or falsity of his [the reporter’s] statements — officially or otherwise".


The haunted roadhouse Bobby Mackey's Music World, already infamous because of its alleged connection to the Pearl Bryan murder, was also a part of this scene. The building, located in Wilder, was Buck Brady's Primrose Club in the 1940s and then the Cleveland mob-run Latin Quarter Club in the 1950s.

Meanwhile, Las Vegas was growing steadily and all the mob action was gradually moving out there (the mob's influence in Vegas had been already ongoing since 1931). This, combined with the increasing pressures on Newport to shed its "Sin City" reputation, led to a decline in its fortunes. By the 1970s the glory days were over and all that remained were a few dingy, dirty strip clubs. In the 1980s Newport began reinventing itself as a new, shiny, clean "family-friendly" city, and today it's a great place to visit, especially since the $40-million Newport Aquarium opened there in 1999.

I still miss the good old bad old days though.

(You can also see some old postcards from those good old bad old days on our Voraxica blog.)

Court rejects Kentucky's attempt to seize web domains

From Online Casino Reports:

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear will appeal a court ruling that stops the state seizing domain names used by Internet gambling sites.

In a 2-1 ruling last Tuesday, the Kentucky Court of Appeals said the state does not have the jurisdiction to seize online casinos' Internet domain names in an effort to keep them from operating in the state. The ruling also said a Franklin Circuit Court judge cannot hold further hearings on the issue.

141 domains had been shortlisted for seizure, including two bingo sites, the hugely popular poker room, Poker Stars, and some major sports betting sites were also slated to be targeted under the move.

Poker advocates welcomed the Court of Appeals' ruling, with Poker Players Alliance Executive Director John Pappas calling it "a tremendous victory for Internet freedom and the rights of Kentucky residents who enjoy playing online poker."

"The Court of Appeals has agreed with the PPA's position that Judge Wingate did not have jurisdiction to issue the order that he entered against these domains and that Secretary Brown had no legitimate right to deprive the citizens of Kentucky of the legal right to play poker online."

However, Kentucky's Secretary of Justice and Public Safety, J. Michael Brown, said that the state would continue to fight the ruling.

As previously reported here and here, this isn't a political blog nor do political matters interest me in the least. I don't really like online gambling, because I think it's strictly for fools. (But then again, I think the same thing about American Idol, and it's still a free country.)

What qualifies this whole issue for Unusual Kentucky is not to take a position in support of online gambling, nor to incite partisan arguments from Democrats, Republicans, or Independents. It's to observe Beshear and Wingate's utter cluelessness about how the internet works, which they are continuing to take to embarrassing extremes. The hypocrisy is further compounded by Beshear's own efforts to bring brick-and-mortar casinos to Kentucky.

It's making Kentucky look naive, stupid, and greedy in the eyes of the rest of the world, and speaking as one of the staunchest defenders of the integrity and value of our fair state, I for one take great offense to it.

Casino industry calls for Kentucky boycott

As previously reported here, Governor Steve Beshear is spearheading a drive to confiscate internet domain names from gambling websites (even ones in other countries) because it is claimed they violate Kentucky law.

This idea, to anyone who has even the most basic clue how the internet works, is barking mad. A Kentucky judge cannot take over a Costa Rican website for violating Kentucky gambling laws any more than an Iranian judge can hijack an American swimsuit site for violating Iranian modesty laws.

Predictably enough, people are not taking this lying down and are now unfortunately calling for a boycott of Kentucky products, especially relating to the racing industry. Needless to say, we at Unusual Kentucky do not support such a boycott, but I can certainly see why a lot of people are ticked off at our Governor right now. I saw this rant today on Online Casino Advisory site:

"We call upon our friends and competitors in the casino news industry to help us reach the public with this call to boycott. If the Poker Players Alliance can get its members to refuse Kentucky products, especially gambling ones, that will send a message to Beshear. If the PPA can get protesters to carry signs in front of Churchill Downs, that would be a public display of our united anger.

If you are a resident of Kentucky, buy your lottery tickets across state borders, or online from another state. If you attend Kentucky tracks, drive to Indiana or other states featuring full racinos. If you live near the state border, buy groceries and cigarettes outside Kentucky."

I don't wish to see our state's economy damaged or hampered in any way, and I call upon Gov. Beshear to please get help and seek the counsel of experts who understand Internet law. This insane scheme to censor websites and confiscate their domain names is doomed to fail, but in the meantime it's obviously going to hurt Kentucky's economy, which we especially don't need at this time when the nation's economy is at an all time low. I also call upon the Democratic Party of Kentucky to quietly take Mr. Beshear aside and attempt to talk some sense into him, before his massive mistake takes the entire party down.

Kentucky vs. the Internet

We've reported on some truly weird Kentucky laws in the past, but this new court ruling from Frankfort has to take the proverbial cake. In case you haven't heard, Governor Steve Beshear has proclaimed, as if by royal fiat, that the state of Kentucky has the right to confiscate the domain names to online gambling sites (even ones in other countries) that, in his view, violate Kentucky anti-gambling laws.

Sounds insane? Sounds illegal? Yes, indeed. And yet Beshear's view is also held, coincidentally enough, by a certain Judge Thomas Wingate in Frankfort. Judge Wingate has ordered owners of 141 online gambling domain names to appear at a court hearing on November 17. And then they have to demonstrate that they're blocking traffic from residents in Kentucky - which of course, they're not. If the sites don't appear or don't comply with the ruling, the rights to their domain names will be forfeited to the state.

Experts, however, take an extremely dim view of Beshear and Wingate's confused idea of how the internet works. The professional Poker organization GPSTS called it "bizarre, far-reaching, and unpleasant", and iMega (Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association), which is an organization championing internet growth and innovation, had this to say:

"Judge Wingate has ignored the clear laws of his own state in coming to a decision that essentially green-lights any jurisdiction - in the U.S. and abroad - to ignore our rights and abuse their power to do away with competition or speech or content with which they oppose, regardless of the law. This is a dark day for Internet freedom."

John Pappas of the Poker Players Alliance is equally outraged at Beshear and Wingate's scheme:

"This action not only unduly restricts the freedom of Kentucky residents to play games of skill online, such as poker, but sets a precedent for censorship of the internet by force.

Many of Governor Beshear's arguments - that online poker is illegal, unregulated and without a mechanism to capture tax revenue - are false. Online poker is not illegal under Kentucky law, it is regulated in its home jurisdiction and the Commonwealth of Kentucky chose not to license and regulate poker websites."

Most disturbing of all to me is that the Governor openly admits that a key part of his reason for committing this constitutional travesty is because he would prefer gambler's dollars to be spent at Keeneland, Churchill Downs, and the Kentucky lottery:

"Illegal and unregulated gambling Web sites - many of which operate from other countries - are leeches on our communities and unfairly undermine Kentucky's horse-racing industry. By seizing those Internet names, the state can require the casino operators to block their sites from being accessed in Kentucky. Kentuckians likely spend tens of millions of dollars on illegal internet gambling sites each year - money that might otherwise go to Kentucky's horse tracks, charitable events and the state lottery."

So, uh, that pretty much reduces his argument to a very petty matter of professional jealousy: 'hey, dese other guys' gambling scams are interfering with OUR gambling scams! Dah, we can't have dat! We'd betta rub 'em out, boss!'

Mind you, I don't give a hoot about online gambling myself. It's strictly for suckers and dopes, if you ask me. But I'll still defend to the death these rubes' constitutional rights to go clickity-clack on any internet site they choose, and to blow their money on said sites.

If allowed to get away with this madness, I guarantee you internet erotica will be next, and then the precedent will be laid to quash political dissent sites and anything else that anyone in any Government anywhere wants to banish from the web. So this isn't just about Poker, it's about setting a legal precedent that allows two-bit politicians and judges to really screw up the internet for everyone else in the world.