U.S. Victory Claim is Merely Spin, Sportingbet Chief Says
A U.S. claim of victory in a dispute with Antigua over Internet gaming (WID April 8 p2) is “spin put on by the American administration,” Sportingbet (U.K.) Group CEO Nigel Payne told Washington Internet Daily. Last week the World Trade organization (WTO) Appellate Body ruled a U.S. ban on online gambling inconsistent with the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and recommended the WTO Dispute Settlement Body ask the U.S. to bring its laws into conformity. The panel also said the U.S. had shown its laws are “necessary to protect public morals or maintain public order.” And it ordered the U.S. to clarify an issue related to online gambling on horse races.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
Antigua’s original complaint asked the WTO to rule that the U.S. violated GATS by barring Internet gambling in the U.S., said Payne. Antigua “won that case, period,” he said. But there’s “abject confusion” over the next step, he added. The U.S. victory claim stems from an American belief that by barring Internet horse-racing bets, the U.S. can claim conformity to GATS, Payne said. Antigua and every other country in the world disagree, he said.
The WTO used horse-race betting not as the sole issue, but merely “as an example” of U.S. inconsistency toward online gambling, Payne said. Other countries wonder how the U.S. can say Internet betting endangers the public interest when American casinos and horse-racing tracks are expanding abroad, he said. But if the U.S. is correct -- as few seem to believe -- “there’s not one chance in 100 trillion years” that Congress will ban Internet horse-race betting, Payne said. Politicians in Washington last week told him “it'll never happen,” he said.
But if the U.S. govt. persuades the WTO Dispute Settlement Body that the public morals exemption applies, the case could drag on for 18 months while the U.S. tries to ban online betting on horse races, Payne said. That leaves Sportingbet in a “great position,” he said, adding that it makes a ban on the industry less likely, delays regulation, and lets his firm expand, outpacing U.S. rivals. That “suits me down to the ground,” he said.
The U.K. Interactive Gaming, Gambling & Betting Assn. welcomed the ruling. The U.S. won in the sense that it now may have an escape clause if it changes its online betting laws, but Congress has tried unsuccessfully for 8 years to ban remote gaming, said Dir. Wes Himes. On April 7, the British Parliament passed a gambling bill that will let U.K. Internet companies take bets on gambling transactions from anywhere in the world, Himes said. That could put the U.K. in the same line of U.S. fire as Antigua, he said. But the ruling also gives the U.K. a stronger leg to stand on if the U.S. challenges it in the WTO.
The European Betting Assn. has been pushing the European Commission (EC) to liberalize online gambling (WID Jan 12 p1). The group filed several “infringement” cases against countries for blocking Internet gaming. Those cases are on hold until the Swiss Institute for Comparative Law reports, probably in Sept., on the European gaming market, Secy.-Gen. Didier Dewyn said last week. Once the institute’s recommendations are in, “further steps can be taken.”