Saturday, February 03, 2007

The US is discriminating against foreign gambling companies by banning
payments to betting Web sites, said Charlie McCreevy, commissioner for the
European Union's internal market. McCreevy told a panel of lawmakers on
Tuesday that the EU should complain to the US over the October 13 bar to
online gaming.
McCreevy, who doesn't have authority over external trade, said he'll ask his
staff to raise the issue with his colleague in charge of trade, Peter
Mandelson.
"In order to protect, I'd say, their own business, their industry there,
they have de facto prevented foreigners from online betting into the United
States," McCreevy said at the European Parliament in Brussels. To
journalists afterward he labeled it "a protectionist measure." The
legislation seeks to close the business to people in the US, representing
half of the world's Internet gaming market. Its backers argued that a past
ban on online gaming in the US had just pushed the business offshore. A
spokesman for the US in Brussels declined to comment, saying it was
premature to respond to remarks by a commissioner where no action has been
taken. To crimp the flow of funds to betting sites, Congress passed the bill
September 30 to bar credit card companies from processing payments to such
businesses. Bush signed the measure into law on October 13. Online gaming
shares plunged and companies including Sportingbet Plc, Leisure & Gaming
Plc, PartyGaming Plc and Empire Online Ltd. ceased US operations or sold
them for nominal amounts. "It is probably a restrictive practice and we
might take it up in another forum," McCreevy said at the EU Parliament's
Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. Asked by journalists afterward if
that referred to a World Trade Organization complaint, McCreevy said, "The
WTO talks have enough to be going on with at the present time without adding
this in. It's not something that has major momentum." The US is contesting a
WTO decision from 2004, based on a complaint brought by Antigua and Barbuda,
that the ban on Internet gaming is illegal. A group representing US casino
operators such as Harrah's Entertainment Inc. and MGM Mirage has pushed
Congress to fund a study of whether online gambling could be regulated, as a
possible way to get into the business themselves.