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Non Cash Prizes EU online gambling negotiations delayed
After announcing in March that the EU were set to investigate the United States ruling banning online gambling, American representatives have postponed negotiations – with no reason given as to the delay.
The EU’s concern over the US online gambling industry is the effect that the current ban is having on trade agreements with European countries. These concerns were magnified by the recent dispute between Antigua and the United States over the online gambling ban, and prompted both the EU and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to become involved in a formal investigation into US legislation banning online gaming.
The main issue at hand is the Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act (UGIEA), which has increasingly been seen as discriminatory against non-US operators of online gambling sites, due to the fact that US operators can dodge the consequences of the law by simply banning American players in order to evade prosecution by the US government if they are caught providing gambling services to US citizens. However, non-US operators cannot avoid the law in this way. The UGIEA is also considered as hypocritical, as it excludes offshore operators from the gambling business, yet local gambling operations such as horse racing are still being permitted. The dissent over this piece of legislation has been highlighted by the fact that only one state in the US has agreed to comply with the UGIEA – California.
As a result of this controversy, the Remote Gambling Association, along with the EU and the WTO issued a formal enquiry to the United States, which was quickly refuted with claims that the UGIEA did not discriminate against European gambling operators. The case was to continue this summer, to hopefully solve the complicated situation once and for all – but with the postponement of the negotiations, the controversy looks set continue for some time yet.