Web-Gambling Ban in U.S. Ruled Illegal by WTO in Case Brought by Antigua

[Purveyor]

March 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. ignored a ruling that found it discriminates against foreign gambling companies by banning payments to gaming Web sites while allowing bets on its own soil, the World Trade Organization's highest judges said.

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Antigua and Barbuda, a Caribbean nation of 80,000 people, challenged Bush administration efforts to close the estimated $12 billion global business to U.S. residents, who account for half of the market. The U.S. banned credit card companies from processing payments to betting sites such as SportingBet, Leisure & Gaming Plc, PartyGaming and Empire Online Ltd., which then ceased U.S. operations or sold them for nominal amounts.

Today's ruling ``offers hope to the global online gambling industry currently under siege by the U.S. Department of Justice,'' Antiguan Finance Minister Errol Cort said in an e- mailed statement. ``It vindicates all that we have been saying for years about the discriminatory trade practices of the United States.''

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Still, the U.S. says the report allows it to maintain a ban on Internet gambling to ``protect public order and public morals'' as long as it doesn't discriminate against foreign companies, Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office in Washington, said in an e-mailed statement. ``We are currently reviewing our options,'' Hamel said.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ae6i0WWKkhTs&refer=us

[kenny blankenship]

1. Tomorrow's Headline: U.S. Minimum Wage Statute Ruled Illegal by World Trade Organization

Say goodbye to your sovereignty suckers.

[yella_dawg]

2. Oops

The religious right's moral values immovable object is blocking big-business's global free market irresistible force. This could get good at a time when the Neocons are sweating bullets already.