Los Angeles Times Online Gaming Article

[-HAL9000- 0]

Didn't find anything posted about this yet so here's the article from the LA Times Sunday business section yesterday. Buried deep in the article it touches on Vegas casinos recognition of the importance of online gaming. Making the Bill Frist ban appear to be secretly orchestrated by Vegas casinos.Antigua's fight for Web gamingFor the island nation challenging the U.S., it's an issue of economic survival.By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff WriterNovember 12, 2006ST. JOHN'S, ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA — In the nine years since she left a dead-end hotel job to work in online gaming, Susan Foderingham became a testimonial to this tiny Caribbean nation's drive to diversify an economy overly dependent on tourism.By processing bets and payouts, the 35-year-old single mother tripled her income, bought a car and sent her son to private school. She had begun saving to open her own lighting and electrical business.But Foderingham's job at the Sports Off Shore betting center is about to disappear, as a result of U.S. legislation signed in October that prohibits American banks and financial institutions from processing payments to Internet gaming operations, even in countries where they are legal.More than 3,000 people in Antigua and Barbuda, or 10% of the workforce, have lost jobs since the late 1990s, when U.S. politicians and social conservatives began targeting online gaming, a phenomenon that is transforming the world of wagering.Antigua responded to earlier U.S. moves to snuff out Internet gaming with stringent regulations and taxes, only to see most of the business flee to Costa Rica. Offshore-gaming revenue, $90 million in 1999, fell to $20 million last year. Only 44 of 200 companies registered since 1994 were still in business at the time of the congressional action. "Why is the United States picking on these tiny little islands? We are not a threat to anybody," said Foderingham, worriedly fingering the gold crucifix she wears around her neck.One of 55 Sports Off Shore employees, the business-school graduate sees the assault on Internet gaming as hypocritical by a country with 42 state lotteries, remote betting on horse races and a gambling capital so hedonistic that it boasts, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."Only 4% of U.S. citizens gamble online, according to the first in-depth industry survey commissioned this year by the American Gaming Assn., which represents U.S. commercial casino operators. That compares with 25%, or 75 million Americans, who visited a "bricks-and-mortar" casino last year.But with the online industry rising from nothing to $12 billion in less than a decade, the traditional purveyors of gambling entertainment have taken notice. The association's survey found that the average Internet bettor was "younger, more highly educated and more affluent" than the traditional casino patron. The gaming association, which has not taken a position on whether the U.S. should legalize Internet gambling, has called for a study of online opportunities and an analysis of whether technologies exist to identify and deter abusers, said spokeswoman Holly Thomsen.Antigua's leaders insist that the means exist and contend that the U.S. — from which half the global demand emanates — should seek to control the industry rather than destroy it."If persons want to spend their time in this form of leisure and entertainment, it behooves us to ensure they're protected," said Kaye McDonald, director of gaming for Antigua and Barbuda's Financial Services Regulatory Commission. "The United States is not embracing regulation but prohibition." Moral issues aside, Antigua contends that the U.S. is violating World Trade Organization rules by prohibiting offshore gaming operations' access to the U.S. market, and the trade group has ruled in the islands' favor. "I remain convinced, as I have been from the beginning four years ago, that the United States is going to have to do something to accommodate us," said Mark Mendel, Antigua's legal representative to the organization. "If they don't, they will indeed be turning their backs on the whole [world trade] process, which is something I don't think they want to do. "The power of the trade body and its dispute-resolution system is vested entirely by its members' compliance," Mendel said. It "doesn't have an army, can't extract cash from you or put you in jail." "If one of the top economies decides it's going to pick and choose among decisions to comply with, that just knocks the feet out from underneath the system," he said.The U.S. legislation was attached to a port security bill adopted after midnight in the waning hours of the last Congress. It spread much farther than these islands — home to about 70,000 — sending publicly traded online gaming companies around the world into a tailspin.Gibraltar-registered poker site PartyGaming, valued at $8.4 billion when it was listed on the London Stock Exchange last year, saw its shares plummet 60% overnight. Antigua's World Gaming suspended London trading after losing 90% of its value. British payment processor Neteller, based on the Isle of Man, contracted by 60%.Among the 700 Antiguans still employed in Internet gaming when Congress acted, more than 180 have been laid off even though enforcement won't start until at least June, when U.S. officials must identify foreign companies engaged in what they term illegal gambling. Antigua's solicitor general, Lebrecht Hesse, said "overzealous U.S. officials" had accelerated collapse of the offshore industry by arresting industry executives to posture as vigilant protectors of family values.Using a 1961 anti-racketeering law that forbids betting on sports, U.S. prosecutors won a nearly two-year prison sentence in 2000 for American entrepreneur Jay Cohen for operating an online betting business in Costa Rica. In July, the British chief executive of BetOnSports, which is based in Costa Rica and Antigua, was arrested during a layover in Dallas and faces trial on charges of racketeering and mail fraud. Another British online gaming businessman, Peter Dicks, was arrested at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport in September on a warrant from Louisiana, one of six U.S. states that outlaw "gambling by computer."Those actions have gotten the attention of gaming operators not involved in sports betting."Even though bingo is played in every small town in America, we are still being targeted" as a threat to the moral purity of U.S. players, said Stuart Gordon, the British-Antiguan founder of Helix International, operator of the popular BingoMania website, which pays out $9 million in monthly prizes.Despite his lawyers' opinion that Helix wouldn't run afoul of U.S. anti-gaming laws because it doesn't take sports bets, the entrepreneur said he wouldn't risk a trip to the country for fear of meeting the same fate as the British executives. Gordon sees the payment-quashing legislation, which President Bush signed Oct. 13, as an election-year campaign stunt by legislators courting the religious right."It's interesting that the Bible Belt has turned a blind eye to horse racing," Gordon said, alleging that U.S. gambling interests were trying to cripple offshore competition so they could take over the Internet market. "Vegas brands have a place online, and I think they recognize that now," he said. "In the past they've looked at it as a passing fad, but the online world has potential I don't think any terrestrial business can match." Another Internet gambling company owner lambasted the U.S. position, predicting that the attempts to wipe out regulated offshore gambling would only chase the market underground."A guy comes back from Iraq and he wants to bet $25 on the Philadelphia Eagles — he has to fly to Las Vegas to do it? Why? Why, if it's immoral, is it legal in Las Vegas?" He spoke on condition that he not be identified, pointing to the recent arrests as evidence that "it's dangerous to say anything against the U.S. government nowadays."Its application of anti-racketeering laws has landed Washington in the high-stakes WTO dispute with countries that have legalized Internet gaming. In the challenge brought by Antigua and Barbuda and joined by the European Union, Japan, Taiwan and Canada as third parties, the WTO ruled last year that because the U.S. failed to impose a consistent ban on cross-state betting, it was obliged to open its market to foreign competition. A U.S. appeal is expected to be decided early next year.According to the office of the U.S. trade representative, Washington's position is that nothing need be done for the time being."Either they rule with us or they don't. I'm not in a position to talk about hypotheticals," spokesman Sean Spicer said of the impending decision.Antiguans see that pose as a stalling tactic.Because researchers here can find no case in which the U.S. failed to eventually comply with final trade rulings, Finance Minister Errol Cort said he was confident that the U.S. would, after an indeterminate face-saving period, embrace rather than try to eradicate the Internet market."But we are of the view that instead of seeking to comply, the United States has moved in the opposite direction," Cort said. "They're digging in."

[Petoria 0]

This is the best one I've read that is in favor of the industry.

[EurekaKid 0]

Hehe I love the phrase "The Bible Belt", it's true though lots of hypocracy. Not going to change anytime soon though

[zedd2005 0]

[No_Neck 0]

Because researchers here can find no case in which the U.S. failed to eventually comply with final trade rulings, Finance Minister Errol Cort said he was confident that the U.S. would, after an indeterminate face-saving period, embrace rather than try to eradicate the Internet market."But we are of the view that instead of seeking to comply, the United States has moved in the opposite direction," Cort said. "They're digging in."that top part sounded promising... didn't like that last line though

[SoCooLBob 0]

Do you really think that the "Christian" right is behind this legislation?Do you relaly think that "Christians" would be willing to PAY to get this law passed?Do you really think that "Christians" believe that playing Poker ONLINE is "immoral" ... and killing thousands in Iraq is not?Do you really think ... ???