from www.tmz.com – A $100 million war has erupted over the unauthorized Michael Jackson online casino — and now GoDaddy.com could be on the hook for allowing the casino owner to register the site with them.

The man behind the lawsuit is Howard Mann — who claims he owns the copyright to the photos featured on MichaelJacksonCasino.com … an online gambling site created by a person who’s managed to conceal his or her identity.

But in a lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Los Angeles, Mann claims the mystery owner registered the site through GoDaddy.com — so now, he’s also suing both the mystery owner and Go Daddy for playing “host” to the “illegal website.”

Mann tells us by suing Go Daddy, he hopes to “flush out the name of the person” who owns MichaelJacksonCasino.com.

In the meantime — Mann tells us he wants more than $100 million in damages from both Go Daddy and the casino owner.

A rep for Go Daddy tells us, “While we have not seen the lawsuit, if we are named, Go Daddy plans to vigorously defend itself.”

The rep adds, “When customers are involved in a legal dispute, Go Daddy complies with court orders.”

Back story: 8/2/2010: Some wannabe gambling tycoons have just opened an unauthorized Michael Jackson Casino online … and TMZ has learned the real MJ Estate is ready to declare casino war in order to shut ’em down.

The gambling site — which features everything from poker to baccarat — features MJ’s image and a message on the home page that reads, “The King of Pop is proud to bring you the most exciting Vegas style online casino betting experience on the Net!”

Problem is — the estate claims never gave the online casino the green light to use any of their trademarks … and now Howard Weitzman — the attorney for Michael Jackson’s estate — tells us he will, “take whatever legal actions are necessary to shut this operation down.”

Talk about a bad bet.