EU Attacks US Online
Gambling Crackdown
 March
30 - According to a
European Commission
(EC) draft report, the U.S. Justice Department crackdown on
European online gambling operations
is in direct violation of the United State's commitments under
the World Trade Organization (WTO).
A
passage from the EU report reads;
'The report finds that U.S. laws on remote gambling and their
enforcement against EU companies constitute a barrier to market
access on EU economic interests. Furthermore,
EU companies are discriminated against:
U.S. companies are allowed to freely operate online gambling on
horse racing in the U.S., while European companies and
individuals cannot, and even face legal action.'
However, according to a senior EU executive who is in charge of
trade policy for the 27-nation bloc, the European Union is more
open to rectifying the violations through
negotiations with U.S. Justice Department officials,
rather than filing what would be a 'groundbreaking' complaint
with the WTO.
In response to the report, the
Justice Department
and the U.S. Trade Representative's office respectively released
statements that they would review it and
open discussions with the EU.
However, Barney Frank, a U.S. lawmaker and long-time critic of
America's controversial online gambling ban,
was scathing about the U.S. Justice Department's contradictory
attitude towards the WTO.
He said, 'I am struck by the people who think we have to abide
absolutely and religiously by the WTO ... but
when it comes to banning online gambling
and the WTO, they simply ignore it.'
When the U.S. Congress voted in the Unlawful Internet Gambling
Enforcement Act (UIGEA)
in October 2006 (which was soon after signed into law by then
President Bush), what followed is that many of the largest
European online gambling firms lost billions of euros in market
value.
UIGEA was
designed to make it illegal for U.S. banks,
financial institutions and credit card companies to process
payments to and from online gambling-related websites,
effectively making it hard if not
impossible for Americans to gamble online.
Now that Bush and his cronies are finally out of the White
House, the billion dollar question is
how and whether President Obama and his administration
will push to reverse the online gambling ban in favour of
legalising, regulating and thus
taxing the popular internet activity.
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