Gambling Thoughts
By GamblingSmarts.com

Antigua won a landmark judgement against the United States this past April. Antigua is the smallest country to even win a case, and to do so against the US is a major victory. Antigua correctly claimed that with US companies accepting internet horse wagers, it is against international trade agreements to make offshore bets on the same races illegal. Since the ruling, the US has proclaimed their view of trade excludes gambling. Weak... especially to make the claim now, after losing a 4 year legal dispute.

There has been a lot of press recently from the poker players alliance, PPA. PPA is a growing movement, currently approaching 500,000 members whom feel that poker should made explicitly legal, not just assumed not illegal. This is a movement that should certainly be supported, although it should expand to all online gambling, not solely poker. Baby steps first, I suppose.

With passage of UIGEA last fall in the final days of the republican controlled congress, there are now bills in the democratic controlled congress to change course. To begin with, there is a bill to commission a 1 year study by UC-Berkeley to study online gaming regulation. Additionally, there is a bill recently introduced to effectively repeal UIGEA. The banking industry certainly wants the act repealed - not to gain profit from facilitating gambling transactions, but because they are threatened with criminal action if they allow transactions to go through - something very difficult to monitor. Regulation is definitely the answer. Online gambling in the US is currently a $6 billion dollar industry (about $12 Billion worldwide) annually. Imagine a 7% tax on gambling profits. That is about a half billion dollars each year. Currently, all that money is leaving the United States - the US doesn't see a cent. This is why they argue about problem gambling and age verification - since they dont make any money, they cannot assure these services are being used to their fullest potential. And US authorities have no clue where the money goes - most into corporate piggybanks, but assurances need to be made that the money is not funding terrorists. These are all very serious problems and all the more reason to regulate instead of forcing the industry underground.