UIGEA Gets Us in Trouble with Antigua

September 5, 2007

When they passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, the United States clearly did not consider the repercussions of passing the law. However, now that they have signed the UIGEA into law, and have been standing behind it, it is time to do some damage control.

One common misperception is that the law made online gambling illegal. It didn’t, although they would like you to think that it is. The law made the processing of payments for online gambling illegal, which is just a sneaky way of trying to get people to stop online gambling without coming out and telling them they can’t do it anymore.

The problem is that other countries depend on the money that comes from online gambling, such as Antigua. So they went to the WTO – the World Trade Organization – to plead their case with the US as they are breaking trade agreements. They said that by the US not following the law of the WTO they were in violation of the agreements and grievously hurting the financial position of Antigua. The US pretty much said, “Who cares?”

The WTO does not want to have to enforce the law as the US is one of their biggest supporters, but the US is breaking the very law that they hold everyone else to. They take China to task for breaking the laws of the WTO and then balk when they are asked to abide by them as well. So they have chosen to not obey the law, and because of such Antigua will soon have the right to do what they want as well.

Many people hope that the WTO gives Antigua the right to copy, distribute, etc. basically violate intellectual property laws of American goods. By doing so they would not only tell the US that it doesn’t matter how big you are, you have to follow the same rules as everyone else; but it would also shake up all of those people who are more than content to let Antiqua fight its own battles on the online gambling front, and show them that we are in danger as well if we don’t follow the same rules that we set forth for everyone else.



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