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I thought this was interesting
BradFrom
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/12449363.htmA World Trade Organization arbitrator has given the United States until April 3 to comply with the panel’s April 7 decision ordering the United States to cease discrimination against foreign online casinos.
Attorneys for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said Monday that the U.S would comply, but suggested any legislative remedy adopted by Congress isn’t likely to throw open the doors to the offshore cyber-gambling industry. If anything, they said, that door might be slammed shut even tighter.
“It is the position of the U.S. Justice Department that Internet gambling is illegal,” said trade representative attorney Bruce Hirsh.
“All we need to do to comply is to clarify” that Internet gambling prohibitions apply equally to offshore operators, he said. “We don’t need to let Antigua have access for horse racing.”
The WTO ruling last spring against the United States turned in large part on exceptions in the federal Interstate Horseracing Act. Those provisions permit some forms of domestic remote wagering by telephone and the Internet through cash accounts established at tracks where such wagering is also legal under state law.
While the international trade body ruled that the United States could legally place restraints on foreign online betting operators in the interest of preserving public morals, it must have rules in place by April 3 that demonstrate those restrictions do not discriminate against foreign businesses.
Many in the Internet gambling industry hope the WTO decision would pave the way to U.S. legalization and regulation of the industry in concert with scores of other nations that have legalized the activity.
“Either you ban it completely or you allow it,” said Peter Marcus, a spokesman for InterCasino.com, which is licensed by the Netherlands Antilles and is one of the oldest online casinos.
“We’d very much like to be licensed, regulated and taxed by the U.S.,” he said in a telephone interview from London.
No matter how the WTO case plays out, Marcus said the United States may not resist world pressure much longer. He noted Great Britain had legalized online gambling and could have rules and its first licensed Internet casinos in place by the end of next year.
“The WTO has ruled,” Marcus added. “The U.S appeal failed.… Poker is too big a thing to stop.… This is a 10-year-old industry, a maturing industry. Some of the biggest companies are publicly traded.”
Antigua, a Caribbean island nation of 67,800, filed its WTO complaint in 2003, seeking market access to U.S. gamblers, who are thought to wager more than half of the estimated $7 billion or more annually wagered online worldwide.This one has been real interesting to watch.
I don’t know – I think the US is not above blatantly snubbing it’s nose at the world court.
