Good Majorwager WTO article.

[Legislurker]

http://majorwager.com/frontline-584.html

Best one out in a while. It raises some new questions, but answers a few.
-When I was fretting about Antigua cutting a deal to be an exclusive market for US facing remote gaming, I completely forgot MFN. Two paragraphs in its there staring me in the face that they can't do that at all.

-Id dearly love to see what deal has been made with Japan, and how binding that is if the #s shoot up.

-I think the 15.5 bn EU number was the EU's number going in, but lobbying by the domestic gaming industry has led them to examine the methodology. Brussels is NOT D.C. Europe has a political class that isn't as hardcore lobbied as the US. Its a lot more behind the scenes and incestual how corruption works there. It appears the gaming industry is getting the ear finally of the elites in Brussels. If the mercantilists who run Trade policy there think its better to push for high compensation or open gaming access, we win. I may be off my pessimism that they will take a small scale services gesture. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

- Potential harm to Canada could be huge, but Stephen Harper isn't a fan of gambling or anything not part of James Dobson's lifeplan. He only has a minority gov't, so it may be more a procedural/bueraeucratic decision, which bodes better for us as they will be more pragmatic. If every Indian nation(however canucks designate tribal areas) is given the same weighting on potential as Kanahawke, they could be #2 in terms of claims.

What action can we take? The PPA should try as hard as possible since they are the DC presence to find out what is in that Japan agreement. We can maybe add lumber companies to a lobbying list? If Canada asks and gets treatment there, it could really damage the deal Harper put in place when he took office, and the US coudlnt do jackshit about it. Not much to do but wait and see if Antigua gets anywhere near 3.4bn.

Thats as close to professional newspaper journalism as I've seen from whats basically an affiliate/industry site. Good article and research.