• Reuters, Monday, May 7, 2007 12 PM

Thanks in large part to the lobbying power of the nation's fat-pocketed casino and horse-racing companies, Internet gambling services will remain illegal in the U.S, the country's Trade Representatives office said Friday. The decision comes in defiance of a World Trade Organization ruling that its ban on Internet gambling is contradictory to the country's policy on gambling offline. WTO members from Antigua to Barbuda to the 27-nation European Union are now seeking compensation from the organization as a result of the U.S. ban.

Deputy Trade Representative John Veroneau said the case brought forth by Antigua and Barbuda several years ago takes advantage of "a drafting error" in U.S. law. Veroneau said the law failed to make clear that its commitments to the WTO "did not extend to gambling." Now the country plans to exercise its right under WTO rules to modify the law.

The plaintiffs are mortified, but the WTO will ultimately rule on whether the U.S. owes anything to its member-countries. Antigua's finance and economy minister, Dr. L. Errol Cort, called the U.S. move an unprecedented, deeply disappointing and "almost incomprehensible" action. The U.S. aim to exclude gambling from its commitment to the WTO would be a big blow to the online gambling industry, which relied on U.S. gamblers for more than half of the $12 billion spent in 2006.

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