Will the U.S. Net gambling policy be affected by the WTO ruling?

The World Trade Organization ruled last week that the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) was violated by the United States because they allowed Americans to make interstate bets on horse races on the Internet or over the phone with American racebooks while they forbade qualified foreign entities to access the U.S. market for the same services.

Antigua and Barbuda initiated the suit in March, 2003, and now by winning it, it has become the smallest country to win a WTO case. The wagers on interstate horses are still considered illegal by U.S. Department of Justice, or so they state.

A professor of Business Law at SUNY Buffalo, Joseph Kelly, said that the statement released by the U.S Department of Justice is ridiculous because they would have taken any actions against the horse racing, if they would have considered it illegal.

The U.S has the possibility of appealing the decision until May 30. To solve the problem, the U.S must either ban the interactive wagers on interstate horse races or to allow the qualified foreign racebooks to take bets on the races too.

Most likely the U.S won't fix the problem, and in that case Antigua has the right to demand sanctions. The sanctions won’t solve the problem right away, but it might cause America problems in the long run, if it doesn't comply with them.

Joseph Kelly said that Richard Luger, the Senator of Indiana, most probably will take actions, because he might think of the international implications of inaction. If U.S doesn't comply with the sanctions, more and more countries will start to ignore sanctions the U.S. has against them.

Now if a country wants to bring forward the same complaint it will receive a favored ruling much faster than Antigua did. Kelly said that the Antigua case was solved in 4 years because it was a first, but now the cases will be solved much faster.

Currently the ban is applied only to the horse racing. However the U.S has the right to ban Internet gambling as long as they are consistent about which Internet bets they allow and which bets they ban.