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While we don’t expect US missiles to rain down on the tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua any time soon, an all out war of words has broken out between these two nations following the World Trade Organization’s granting Antigua permission to set up an online site infringing on US intellectual property.
The WTO decided in 2007 that America was in violation of a trade agreement for barring its citizens from using gambling sites based in the Caribbean nation.
Antigua hasn’t always been the bastion of quality when it comes to online gambling operators (World Sports Exchange certainly comes to mind of late). Then again, the island is still home to some of the more highly regarded sites such as Bodog, Intertops and they have long licensed Sportsbook.com, though the later is primarily based out of Costa Rica.
Uncle Sam is not happy….and dare we say many of its digital firms the likes of Microsoft won’t be either once they fully grasp this news.
“The United States has urged Antigua to consider solutions that would benefit its broader economy. However, Antigua has repeatedly stymied these negotiations with certain unrealistic demands," said Nkenge Harmon, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office.
For its part, Antigua says it has no intention of launching the “pirate” site provided the US lives up to the WTO ruling. One can only expect Microsoft and other similar firms to begin applying pressure to the powers-that-be. But until now, the feeling in this Caribbean online gambling stronghold is that the United States has basically deemed the tiny nation as “irrelevant” in the whole scheme of things.
"I do think that the US has a mixed, immature and difficult domestic situation with respect to gambling in general and remote gambling in particular," Antigua’s legal representative Mark Mendel told Wired.co.uk. "However, I think the main reason the US has not complied with the WTO rulings is that Antigua is such a small country they think they can get away with it. I also think that, unfortunately, some people in the US government were almost offended that Antigua chose to challenge the US and have been so persistent in its pursuit of justice that the US government has adopted unusually harsh and unyielding lines that have made it difficult to consider our issue in its proper context."
We can only hope there won't be another "Grenada" taking place.
- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com
