A computer screen displays an online gambling website. Antigua's quarrel with the United States over market access to its gaming industry was back at the World Trade Organisation this week. - Reuters

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) held two days of talks at the top of the week on Antigua and Barbuda's internet gaming dispute with the United States, from which the twin-island emerged optimistic.

The WTO has ruled in the past that the U.S. was contravening world trade rules by blocking market access, but the large nation of 300 million has so far refused to comply.

Dr. Errol Cort, the finance minister of Antigua, a nation of 69,000, in a statement issued from Geneva said the Caribbean country's position was backed by big trading partners of the U.S., including China, Japan and members of the European Union.

"Major trading partners of the United States have seen it fit to join with us in contesting what we have always maintained is a dispute about granting market access," said Cort in a statement from Geneva, Switzerland, home of the WTO.

Remarkable

"What is even more remarkable is that they choose to become active players in this WTO process, and we believe that a crucial factor in their respective decisions to do so was the pure merits of our case."

The EU's stance on the issue was not surprising given the US$15.5 billion value tag on the industry and the fallout felt by mostly British-based online betting companies after U.S. president George W. Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act into law, criminalising the processing and settlement of payment linked to online gaming transactions by banks and credit card companies.

Two of the largest companies immediately closed down their operations and exited the U.S. market, one of whom sold part of its operation to an Antigua-based company.

Sportingbet PLC and Leisure & Gaming PLC both sold their U.S. operations for a token US$1 days after the law took effect.

Off-loading debt

Sportingbet sold its U.S. sports-betting, casino business and poker operations to Antigua-based Jazette Enterprises Limited, off-loading US$13.2 million of debt in the process.

Jazette, as a condition of the deal, agreed not to take bets from non-U.S. residents for two years, and not to take bets from customers outside the Americas for three years.

PartyGaming PLC, the world's largest gambling company, also said it had suspended all real money gaming activities to customers in the United States.

Questions

Mark Mendel, Antigua and Barbuda's legal adviser, said the panel would have followed up the talks with a series of questions by Wednesday to the disputing parties, as well as third party interests, the answers to which were to submitted to the panel within a week.

A record of the hearings is to be published December 22, and an interim report on January 11.

"On receipt of the interim report, the parties will be given a period of time to submit their comments and observations on the panel's rulings and recommendations, before the final report is made available to the entire WTO membership sometime in early February 2007," said Cort's statement.

"We have every reason to be confident that - given the merits of our case and the fact that the U.S., having given an undertaking to do so, has done nothing to bring itself into compliance with rulings and recommendations of the DSB - we will prevail at this stage," said Kaye MacDonald, Antigua's Director of Gaming.

- CMC and Financial Gleaner reports