Inside Asian Gaming

48 might take it up in another forum.” That was in January. In June, with the Doha talks in meltdown in Potsdam, and the US promising compensation for GATS any- way, that forum presented itself. On June 17, the EU announced that it would not press for an opening of USmarkets to its gambling operators. Instead it would seek “unspecified” market access for compa- nies in other sectors.Said one Brussels official at the time, “We need new concessions that would be equal with the benefits lost.” This was just a couple of days before the lights went out at the Cecilienhof. Made in Antigua Doha’s problems have many diplomats and trade officials fearful that something akin to a Hobbesian State of Nature will blot out their grand vision of a global free market. The problem is, it may already be upon us. This latest Doha Round broke down over the failure of the so-called G-4 states, the United States, the European Union, Brazil and India, to reach agreement on agricultural subsidies, the issue that has haunted the ne- gotiations since they were launched in the Qatar capital six years ago. There are big cracks in the WTO, need- less to say, mostly in the form of fundamen- tal differences arising from the competing needs of rich and poor nations. Lavish farm subsidies have closed US and European mar- kets to the agricultural products of develop- ing countries while Europe and the United States dump their agri-goods all over the world, deflating prices. Even in the midst of this summer’s talks, Brazil was threatening an Antigua-like WTO action against the United States over this. And on and on it goes. Europe and the United States are wrangling with each other over farm subsidies at the same time as they demand quid pro quo from developing na- tions for keeping out their manufactures. Poorer nations resent the domination of criti- cal services and financial sectors by multina- tional corporations, which they say drives up prices and impedes internal development. A real sore point among the have-nots is the WTO agreement on Trade Related Intellec- tual Property Rights (TRIPs), which they say is robbing them of rightful patents and copy- rights, gouging them on technology costs and denying generic medicines to the poor. In light of all this gambling looks pretty trivial. Then again, the fact that it’s suddenly become a card worth playing is a good gauge of how wide the cracks in the WTO have grown. The EU, in this respect, wields enough clout to play the gambling card for conces- sions in other economic areas. Antigua and Barbuda obviously is not so well-situated. The government sees electronics exports as a possible growth industry. It was weakness in the tourism sector the last several years (the result of tropical storms and other factors) that turned the tiny nation of 70,000 more aggressively toward the licensing of Internet gambling in the first place, although for a country with Antigua’s reputation as an off- shore tax and banking haven the move was a natural.That said, the government’s request for yearly compensation from the United States to the tune of US$3.44 billon, with its intellectual property obligations under TRIPs as hostage, might be aiming a bit high. “This action,” the country’s Financial Ser- vices Regulatory Commission states, “repre- sents a material escalation in the stakes at play in the gambling case”—one it hopes will persuade the US Congress to make friends with the offshore gambling industry and en- act legislation like that proposed in May by Rep. Barney Frank to legalize it. “The reality is that the US lost a very im- portant case in the WTO that will ultimately force the US into either compliance or reject- ing the entire WTO process,” Mark Mendel said in an interview published in August on the Gambling911 website. Washington says US$3.44 billion is “pa- tently excessive”—and it is about four times Antigua’s entire annual gross domestic product, which is still heavily dependent on tourism and on Americans, who account for about one-third of visitors to the islands. The claim could backfire for other rea- sons. The inevitable push-back against WTO inequities, real or perceived—and sensa- tional headlines about food safety and lead- coated toys haven’t helped—will not fail to affect gambling, which is an easy target in the best of times. “TheWTO’s ruling was not some fluke but rather a preview of coming attractions, given how extensively the WTO’s rules interfere with non-trade domestic policies,” said Lori Wallach, director of the Global Trade Watch Division of Public Citizen, an American non- profit organization founded by consumer advocate Ralph Nader. She went on, “It’s good news that the Bush administration finally is listening to the state attorneys general and others who have asked for the US trade representative to re- move gambling from WTO jurisdiction and thus eliminate further attacks on US gam- bling regulation.” Down in El Paso, even Mendel concedes that within American society at large the is- sues just don’t arouse much passion either way. “It seems to amount to public grand- standing by politicians with no public con- nect,” he told Gambling911 . “I think that is why domestic interests have had little prob- lem getting their exemptions carved into legislation. Nobody cares.” But he does profess to find hope in this. “Because nobody cares that much, I think that this may be one of the rare circumstanc- es where public citizen input to legislators might make a real difference.” By James Rutherford, International Editor of International Gaming and Wagering Busi- ness (IGWB) magazine. Reprinted with permis- sion from IGWB . It was weakness in the tourism sector the last several years (the result of tropical storms and other fac- tors) that turned the tiny nation of 70,000 more aggressively toward the licensing of Internet gambling.