WTO rules against US in Antigua's case

[Richas]

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I don't believe that the EU will risk a bitter dispute process by getting involved in this one way or another. I think this could change however if prominent EU citizens start getting thrown in US jails for prolonged periods of time.

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LOL the EU would love another bitter trade dispute with the US so clearly in the wrong. A lot of this stuff boils down to dirty deals done late at night at places like Doha and this is a nice big bat to beat the US up with and at the same time pretend to be on the little guy's side (while trying to nick his businesses).

[checkmate36]

Sands is opening up an online poker/casino site in the 2nd Q 07. Maybe they are optomistic that things in the US may change in the future for the better.

Link

[SCBielski]

Online poker is a billion dollar industry in Europe and where there is money, there is conflict and competition. I don't think Europe will go quietly while we deny them large sums of money. I predict that poker will eventually be distinguished from "online gambling" such as horsetrack betting, blackjack, etc because it is a much more profitable and powerful industry. There's simply too much money tied up in this issue for the US and other countries to ignore it. I've still never even receive a legitimate explanation as to why "online gambling" has been banned.

[schwza]

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I think European Banks could put some pressure on The EU to pursue the matter. I also think a carve out for poker will happen in the next 12 months. It is not a end to the US deficit, but would increase tax revenue and open new trade markets for US companies.

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schwa? really?

we've already got a schwza and schwah with many k posts.

[LeapFrog]

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[ QUOTE ]
I think European Banks could put some pressure on The EU to pursue the matter. I also think a carve out for poker will happen in the next 12 months. It is not a end to the US deficit, but would increase tax revenue and open new trade markets for US companies.

[/ QUOTE ]



schwa? really?

we've already got a schwza and schwah with many k posts.

[/ QUOTE ]

fight! fight!

[latefordinner]

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LOL the EU would love another bitter trade dispute with the US so clearly in the wrong. A lot of this stuff boils down to dirty deals done late at night at places like Doha and this is a nice big bat to beat the US up with and at the same time pretend to be on the little guy's side (while trying to nick his businesses).

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree on the current size of the bat, but not on its potential to get bigger.

The EU has yet to take the US to task on this in an explicit way despite opportunities to do so. As of right now it is still mostly grumbling.

[BluffTHIS!]

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The US can comply through legislative or administarative actions. I am not sure what they are talking about when they say "judicial." But I have a few ideas.

You are correct when you point out that the Appellate Body and the original panel made no distinction between horse racing and other forms of remote wagering. The US has consistently tried to spin it otherwise. I firmly believe that is why the US leaked this latest decision early, to get a jump on the spin.

What's funny is if you read the original Reuter's story, the US claims it is only responding to press reports. Well, prior to that same story, there were NO other stories out.

The trade world is watching. The US gets more out of the WTO than any other country. The EU, China, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, and Canada have all weighed in on Antigua's side at some point in this process. The deveoloping world is also watching. The US wants concessions form all of the smaller nations. They tell them join the WTO and we are all on equal footing. Well the Antigua Gambling case is a real issue with those same nations.

I'm looking forward to seeing the upcoming Compliance Panel Report and seeing how it compares with the leaks of the USTR.

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Jay,

Thanks for that response and the view about who exactly leaked this story. Regarding that story though, the trade rep could have just been referring to media questions to her office prior to any story being written. And thus one could also question whether Antigua might have leaked it in order to generate public awareness in the US of the issue prior to the trade rep's office responding to the preliminary report in advance of the official report in a few weeeks.

Either way, regardless of who leaked it, I think it serves our interests here no matter what the interests of the leaking party. More public awareness of US hypocrisy and double-talk in WTO issues, especially now with a diffeernt party in control of congress, can only benefit us.

In particular, senators and congressmen who have previously worked to insure any legislation including the UIGEA doesn't harm horse race betting, should be concerned that an obvious way out of non-compliance is simply for the US to outlaw remote wagering on horse racing, instead of continuing the ridiculous line of argument that the WTO only cares about that, when that clearly isn't the case and they aren't distinguishing horse race betting from other forms of remote wagering.

[Richas]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
LOL the EU would love another bitter trade dispute with the US so clearly in the wrong. A lot of this stuff boils down to dirty deals done late at night at places like Doha and this is a nice big bat to beat the US up with and at the same time pretend to be on the little guy's side (while trying to nick his businesses).

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree on the current size of the bat, but not on its potential to get bigger.

The EU has yet to take the US to task on this in an explicit way despite opportunities to do so. As of right now it is still mostly grumbling.

[/ QUOTE ]

The bat got a lot bigger with UIGEA as it gives a size for the economic damage - the share price falls. The EU are patient enough for the Antigua case to conclude and the timing works quite well for the UK which will only license online sites in Sept 07.

Registering a material interest was taking on the US in an explicit way as was providing evidence to support Antigua's case.

[grizy]

Trust me on this one... EU is already so entangled with the US on issues ranging from farm subsidies, biotech agriculture, to frigging bananas, there is virtually no chance EU will expend energy on internet gambling. In truth, I don't think I want the EU to get involved because everything the EU brings up in the WTO seems to get nowhere at all.

[grizy]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
LOL the EU would love another bitter trade dispute with the US so clearly in the wrong. A lot of this stuff boils down to dirty deals done late at night at places like Doha and this is a nice big bat to beat the US up with and at the same time pretend to be on the little guy's side (while trying to nick his businesses).

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree on the current size of the bat, but not on its potential to get bigger.

The EU has yet to take the US to task on this in an explicit way despite opportunities to do so. As of right now it is still mostly grumbling.

[/ QUOTE ]

The bat got a lot bigger with UIGEA as it gives a size for the economic damage - the share price falls. The EU are patient enough for the Antigua case to conclude and the timing works quite well for the UK which will only license online sites in Sept 07.

Registering a material interest was taking on the US in an explicit way as was providing evidence to support Antigua's case.

[/ QUOTE ]

Material interest was never a serious point of contention. US' burden of proof is that the law prohibits domestic online gambling as well as foreign. In the case of horseracing, it was clearly not the case. When it comes to poker, well, that's a different story.

Furthermore, this actually might have the opposite effect of what we might expect... if they want to keep UIGEA on teh books while complying with WTO ruling, the simplest solution would be to simply enforce it harder... effectively prohibiting online gambling of any kind. Which, frankly, is the route the DoJ seems intent on taking.