MGM Resorts has won the first battle in a court war waged over the rights to a set of internet domain names. The fight, begun just this past December, saw the Las Vegas corporation filing a motion against six defendants, claiming that the accused parties had violated their trademarked casino names. This was done, MGM said, by the purchasing of certain internet domain names in which the trademarks in question were prominently displayed. In an encouraging sign for the prosecution, the judge has granted a preliminary injunction against the offending parties.

Courtesy of iGaming Business, here are the domains in question: AriaPoker.com, BellagioOnlinePoker.com, CircusCircusPoker.com, ExcaliburPoker.com, LuxorPoker.com, MandalayBayOnlinePoker.com and MGMPoker.com. As even the most cursory glance will confirm, many of these names rely heavily on the popularity of MGM’s casinos. While one or two may serve as stand alone titles, it’s hard not to side with the gaming magnate.

Each of these names, reports say, were purchased between 2002 and 2005. With the injunction now handed down, GoDaddy, Wild West Domains, and Melbourne IT (the three internet service providers on which the sites were hosted) have been ordered to freeze the domains pending the judgment of the court.

On the bench for this case was federal Judge Philip Pro, a man with extensive experience in Nevada politics. Having been involved with law in the state since 1972, he has served as both a public defender and a private practitioner. In the written judgment through which the injunction was handed down, Pro stated that MGM is “likely to succeed on the merits of its claims for cyber squatting and trademark infringement.”

Should the gaming giant go on to win this case (as they most likely will), one of these reclaimed domain names may wind up as the first to offer legal intra-state poker in Nevada. That possibility is still a ways off, but one never knows.