"Canadian Gaming Council in Agreement that United States Needs to Regulate Gambling"

The Canadian-based Interactive Gambling Council (IGC) has recently expressed its opinion regarding the continuing issue now being dealt with by the United States and the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding Internet gambling. Following Utah’s Attorney General sending of a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative in which he states that the U.S. Trade Representative should have done more to stop the World Trade Organization from declaring that gambling needs to be treated just as any other recreational service the IGC expressed their agreement with Utah’s Attorney General and his colleagues from 27 other states that believe that the regulation of gambling should be left up to the individual states. The letter also concludes that the ruling will ultimately threaten all state regulations involving gambling.

IGC Executive Director Ray Smith added that his organization wanted to remind the Attorney General that maintaining the U.S. tradition of letting the states, rather than the federal government, regulate gambling is a double sided sword. He also added that in his opinion this tradition means that Utah, for instance, has the right to endeavor to ban all gambling. It also means, he says, that the federal government must keep its hands off when Nevada or a U.S. territory such as the U.S. Virgin Islands tries to authorize and regulate online casinos, or when North Dakota tries to authorize and control online poker.

In addition, IGC also believes that the letter from Utah’s Attorney General ignores the essential concept of international trade agreements and, indeed, of fair play as well as the very workings of the WTO, in general.

The IGC noted that the U.S. had agreed to support the WTO and its functions and that in the past the U.S. has benefited from the rulings of the WTO. According to the IGC, it is unethical and impractical for the U.S. to try to evade the WTO rulings or to try to extract gambling from the original trade agreement. In their opinion the WTO had followed correct procedure when, after receiving a complaint against the U.S filed by Antigua, it deliberated the case, issued a judgment, and then issued a final ruling after both sides appealed the original ruling. They believe that to disregard this entire process weakens the authority of the WTO and opens the door for other countries to be just as unaccountable when WTO rulings don’t favor their policies, and to retroactively endeavor to re-negotiate a multifaceted treaty (GATS the General Agreement on Trade in Service) since the U.S. doesn’t like a ruling under the treaty is as unrealistic as it is unfair. Director Smith notes that the IGC believes that International treaties necessitate accountability as well as give and take. In his words, no country should expect to win every case.

IGC’s deputy director Ken Farlong says that the IGC was not totally satisfied with the WTO’s ruling on the Antigua complaint. But, he adds, at least the WTO recognized that the GATS includes an obligation to free trade in gambling and betting services. And Farlong adds, the WTO also established that the U.S. violates GATS by allowing remote betting services for horse racing, but only for domestic suppliers and not for foreign suppliers of said services.

According to Farlong, the IGC believes that the U.S. and the international community would be far better off if the U.S. would stop resisting the inevitability of the international online gambling industry and, in its place, start working usefully on regulating online gambling in the same way that land-based gambling is regulated.

In Farlong’s opinion progress will be seen when the U.S. affirms the rights of its states to regulate gambling. That, according to him, means the inclusion of the rights of states to certify and regulate Internet gambling, as well as the rights of states like Utah to endeavor to ban all forms of gambling.