Antigua Pressures USA To Accept WTO Gambling Decision
It's David versus Goliath in a battle to accept the legitimacy of online gambling, and fortunately David has the WTO on his side. Antigua want the USA to comply with the World Trade Organisation's historic ruling, handed down last year, which stated that the USA was discriminating against sovereign countries like Antigua that allowed Internet gambling companies to operate on their soil.
The USA shows no signs of complying with the WTO ruling, and continues instead to campaign for Internet gambling to be prohibited. The Goodlatte bill, which will be introduced in congress is the latest attempt to ban online gambling. It will fail dismally, but once again shows that America's ability to even conceive of other sovereign nations is questionable at best, even when oil isn't there to sweeten the pot!
The USA loves to trample on international law and seems set to defy the WTO. Antigua should be commended for standing its ground, and for taking on a Puritanical, and woefully ignorant bully. The chances of tens of millions of Americans giving up playing online poker right now are slim to none anyway. Who is going to tell an American tax-paying citizen that he does not have the freedom or right to play poker on an Internet site that is lawfully regulated by another country??
