Tiny Antigua takes on the US. Condemns Washington for breaching the rules of global commerce through its ban on Internet gambling.

[TheGeneral+]

The tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua took on the US today and asked the World Trade Organisation to condemn Washington for breaching the rules of global commerce through its ban on Internet gambling.

Restrictions which bar US residents from betting at offshore Internet casinos are unfair and harm Antigua’s attempts to diversify its economy, said Sir Ronald Sanders, Antigua’s High Commissioner in London.

Antiguan authorities have promoted electronic commerce as a way to end the twin-island nation’s reliance on tourism, a sector which was battered by six hurricanes in the late 1990s, he said.

But Linnet Deily, the UN ambassador to the WTO in Geneva, said controls are necessary because “the United States has grave concerns over the financial and social risks posed by such activities to its citizens, particularly but not exclusively children.”

Despite Antigua’s claims, Internet gaming does not fall under WTO rules that say countries should open up trade in services, and the United States is free to ban it, she added.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=73231968&p=73z3z674

 

[JoeyC]

This story is at least 3 months old.

Maybe after 7 or 8 years, the WTO will get around to looking into this.

 

[TheGeneral+]

Sorry Joey

First i had seen it. Didnt realize it was old news

 

[oldmantime]

Does this mean the US will have to go to Antigua to find those WMD?
Are they also hiding terrorrists there?

Nobody and I mean NOBODY tells the US anthing!

Go Antigua!!!!!!!!! (You have some US fans)

 

[JoeyC]

Oldman:

US will probably want to jerk Antigua's correspondent's banking priviledges.

Someone will "leak" a story about how terrorists was using their banking to secretly do this or that or whatever bullshit du jour they creat in DC

 

[WildBill]

They weren't the first ones to come up with this idea and I posted about it months before they went out and tried. And the reality is that the representative here is dead wrong. The US has the right to ban it, but its activities must be confined to their own country. This means that they cannot harrass a legal business operating outside their jurisdiction and they cannot threaten to arrest people engaging in it overseas. Once again, no one can do anything about bad biased judges in New York, but that is another story. What the WTO doesn't cover is Antigua cannot get the WTO to force the US to allow wagers to be made. The case is quite flimsy for Antigua for now, but if the US starts doing something like ordering open bank records or taking money from banks in Antigua, then that would be a different story. Scary thing is that is exactly what the Patriot Act allows them to do. What keeps the US from doing it is likely the fear that they could create legal precedent that they wouldn't like. Right now there is very little court law to determine legality of offshore wagers, especially those from one legal location to another legal location in another country. The US could get into big trouble if a judge essentially creates law and says there is no law that backs up what the Justice Department claims is the law.

 

[oldmantime]

I don't think much will come of it either. First of all tiny Antigua has nothing the US wants (ie Oil) and secondly no-one from there has threatened Bush's father!

 

[TheGeneral+]

GENEVA -- The Caribbean nation of Antigua on Tuesday asked the World Trade Organization to condemn the United States for breaching the rules of global commerce through its ban on Internet gambling.

Restrictions that bar U.S. residents from betting at offshore Internet casinos are unfair and harm Antigua's attempts to diversify its economy, said Ronald Sanders, a senior foreign ministry official.

Antiguan authorities have promoted electronic commerce as a way to end the twin-island nation's reliance on tourism, a sector that was battered by six hurricanes in the late 1990s, he said.

But Linnet Deily, the U.S. ambassador to the WTO, said "the United States has grave concerns over the financial and social risks posed by such activities to its citizens, particularly but not exclusively children."

Despite Antigua's claims, Internet gaming does not fall under WTO rules that say countries should open up trade in services, and the United States is free to ban it, she added.

The current legal status of Internet gambling in the United States is hazy. Some site operators have been prosecuted under the 1961 Wire Communications Act, which was written to cover sports betting via telephone.

But virtually all Internet gambling operations -- the U.S. General Accounting Office estimates there are 1,800 -- are based outside the United States, posing an enforcement problem.

Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to prohibit gamblers from paying bets with credit cards, checks and electronic fund transfers.

But the House also passed an exemption aimed at protecting legal U.S.-based gambling, after opponents said a stronger ban would practically kill horse racing -- which relies heavily on credit card transactions.

Sanders said U.S. concerns about Internet gambling are misplaced.

In the past three years Antiguan authorities have demanded more financial disclosures. The number of gaming companies has dropped from 100 to 35 and an international task force had applauded the government's efforts, Sanders said.

The United States should respect the promises rich nations made at a WTO meeting in 2001 in Doha, Qatar, when they said they would do more to help developing nations, Sanders added.

"The (online) industry provides much needed employment to thousands of our bright and computer-literate young people," he said. Online casinos employ some 3,000 of Antigua's 67,000 people.

"It has provided them with a means of livelihood without which they might have been forced to turn to unlawful activity, such as the vibrant drug trade that now plagues the Caribbean region."

In 2000, Antigua's casinos generated US $37.5 million in taxes.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/gaming/2003/jun/25/515262574.html

 

[assassin]

sorry, i thought it said condoms the U.S.
Would have paid to see that.
Carry on

 

[oldmantime]

It is allmost laughable that anyone believes what some US beaucrat says at some World Trade Org. or wherever about wanting to help developing Nations! I feel for Antigua as they do seem very sincere about running this business the right way and LOOK at the money they say it has made for theie government! Whew. I tell ya after today when the Supreme Court says it's ok "behind closed doors for two men to have sex"--but tell a straight we can't play sports in our houmes! What a country hey!

 

[TheGeneral+]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> sorry, i thought it said condoms <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I will say that the Senate will have to address the concerns of other countries a bit. It will affect relations foreign & domestic. I think that the countries who house these books should all speak up strongly.

 

[Heggles]

To Wild Bill and others:

I read your comments on the WTO issue and thought I would respond.

The US and Antigua are both signers of a treat called the G.A.T.S., General Agreement on Trade and Services. Under this treaty the countries are to allow the free cross-border exchange of services between the customers (gamblers) in one country and the services providers (bookmakers) in the other. Either country had the opportunity to outright ban or limit any particular service when treaty was signed. Neither the US nor Antigua placed any limits on the cross-border exchange of gambling services. Therefore, each country is bound by the treaty to allow the consumers (gamblers) in one access to the service providers (bookmakers) in the other.

If the US had an outright ban on all gambling it might have been able to deny access under the “morals” exception in the WTO. However, as you are well aware, no only is gambling widespread in the US, in many areas it is state sponsored.

When the US tries to ban offshore operations access to the US consumers while at the same time allowing those same consumers to wager at brick & mortar casinos, it is called protectionism and it is in plain violation of the G.A.T.S. The mode of delivery is not relevant since the US placed no limits on the cross-border supply of gaming in their schedule. Regulated gambling is regulated gambling whether it is regulated by the US or Antigua. Antiguan operators have a legal right to access the consumers in the US market according to the treaty.

Finally, the treaty also states that it is illegal for one country to interfere with international monetary payments and transfers to another country. It seems to me the bill in Congress should it become law, would be a blatant violation of this provision.

All of the above is part of the G.A.T.S. The US signed it, and it is binding on the US and all states under the US Constitution.

The US is in the wrong on this issue and now it going to adjudicated in an impartial international court. What th US is doing is protectionism and I am optimistic an international panel agree.

The US gets more out of the WTO than any other country. It’s a two way street. Even for the small guy like Antigua.

 

[WildBill]

Having been fairly close to another group from another country that plotted the same course you have taken I am interested in the Antiguan strategy. The people that I know came up with problematic answers to simple questions and for those reasons did not go forward. These three issues pretty much made the advisors think the WTO route was pointless.

1. A legal barrier has to exist. To have people "say" its illegal or to have credit card companies refuse the transactions because of pressure isn't generally enough to win this case. Until a law is passed and people have it enforced against them its hard to win this case. The people I associate with thought that once something passed and they could prove this point, they might move forward with their case, but not before it.

2. Proof of harm and a reasonable amount of monetary harm it has cause needs to be established. The issue here is that you have a hard time quantifying harm and even more so an amount. How does one prove that a gambler in the US was going to bet in Antigua, yet decided not to because of these efforts? This is a really tricky challenge when looked at in light of the fact that still Americans monetarily are the bread and butter of the industry so its hard to say there is "harm" there and even harder to say how much since those that stayed away can't be reasonably estimated for a dollar amount.

3. Worst of all, this is merely a court of trade. The worst thing the WTO could decide is to come up with a dollar amount of harm, maybe throw some penalty dollars on top of it, and say ok Antigua you have our blessing to retaliate. Choose however you want to force the US to pay you back $50 million or whatever figure you come up with, but it has to be done through tariffs and trade issues. You can't make the US change their laws and they probably will scoff at the thought of having to change laws for this issue. And then comes the issue, what exactly could Antigua do to get these dollars? The citizens already pay high prices due to tariffs, making them higher isn't going to please anyone. You could charge taxes on tourists coming in, but that will just drive them off elsewhere.

In other words Antigua could win what would be about the most hollow court victory ever, but only after some very tough tests. All that Antigua can hope to accomplish is making a statement, one that the US Congress will promptly ignore. Sad but true. We are all pulling for Antigua, but its not a very promising case.