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US Faces $100 Billion Fine For Web Gambling Ban
Stony Stevenson writes with the news that the World Trade Organization is seeking billions of dollars in compensation from the United States from their ban on internet gambling. The view of the WTO is that the US has reneged on commitments to the organization. "The disputed concessions arise from Antigua's victory earlier this year when the WTO ruled that the US violated its treaty obligations by excluding online Antiguan gaming operators, while allowing domestic operators to offer various forms of online gaming. Instead of complying with the ruling, the Bush administration withdrew the sizeable gambling industry from its free trade commitments. As a result, all 151 WTO members are considering seeking compensation for the withdrawal equal to the size of the entire US land-based and online gaming market, estimated at nearly US$100 billion."
Er, no.
Gaming in the UK is also heavily regulated to ensure people aren't cheated out of their money. So why were UK executives of a UK online betting company arrested by the US when their plane passed through a US dependency's airport?
The US prohibits gambling on religious grounds, not because of corruption worries.
It's because we didn't actually ban gambling. If the U.S. had just banned all forms of gambling, that would have been fine and the WTO would have accepted that with no problems. But instead, we banned only certain specific forms of gambling (e.g. Internet poker and casino games) while specifically allowing others (e.g. brick and mortar casinos, horse and dog racing, fantasy sports betting) and even protecting some as a governmental monopoly (state lotteries). It's the U.S.'s schizophrenic way of simultaneously banning and allowing gambling that's had the Antigua and the WTO complaining for so long.
That is not the big issue. They are holding our bonds, and we don't have the Gold standard. So we just print them as many dollars as we want and give it to them. They know it too. So they won't cash the bonds, but they might start a war.
In the last war, almost all historians agree, Germany was defeated mainly by the huge industrial output of USA. In the next Sino-US war, just see who has the industrial capacity to out produce weapons to foresee the winner.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
As an American,
The issue is that we do allow gambling. If it was entirely illegal, this would not be a trade issue. But by allowing gambling in certain protected areas, we are engaging in protectionism of the gambling industry from foreign competition.
We are saying "gambling from italy is illegal" but "gambling from vegas is legal".
Clearly, if a local jurisdiction wishes to prohibit gambling, they just need to put up a firewall around the internet to their jurisdiction.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.