Canadian online gambling operator Amaya Gaming will ask PokerStars’ former owners to pay any damages imposed by a Kentucky court in an illegal gambling civil suit.

On Thursday, Amaya released a statement to provide “clarity” on Wednesday’s news that a Kentucky court had ordered Amaya to pay $290m to atone for PokerStars’ activities in the state before the 2011 Black Friday indictments forced the site to exit the US market.

Amaya called the state’s civil lawsuit “frivolous and without merit” and rubbished the century old statute on which it was based. That statute allows third parties to collect on other state residents’ illegal gambling losses and to force the illegal gambling operator to pay three times the value of these losses.

In a Nov. 20 ruling, Franklin Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate awarded the Commonwealth of Kentucky $290m based on Stars’ dealings with Kentucky poker players between Oct. 12, 2006 (the date on which the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act took effect) and April 15, 2011 (aka Black Friday).