RSSEU Trade Commissioner Pressures US to End Internet Gambling Ban
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published November 8, 2007, 6:22 PM
As a demonstration of the rapidly growing payoff from the falling value of the US dollar against foreign currency, European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson was in Washington today as part of an effort to compel Congress to repeal a ban on Internet gambling signed into law last year. Comm. Mandelson argued that the ban was unfair to Europe, where much of the world's online gambling operations are centered.
"It's not in the interest of American consumers to have good responsible competitors in this market excluded by regulatory mechanisms," Reuters quotes Mandelson as having told a Capitol Hill press gathering.
In October 2006, in one of his final acts as Senate Majority Leader before his retirement, Bill Frist (R - Tenn.) engineered a set of rules that managed to tack a previously rejected separate bill banning monetary transactions with online gambling operations in the US, onto a sea ports regulation bill containing anti-terrorism measures that the Senate was certain to pass, and President Bush sure to sign.
As it stands, the SAFE Ports Act doesn't actually ban the act of gambling online. Instead, it bans any financial institution from transacting electronically or otherwise with an organization known to conduct gambling operations. Since online gamblers typically pay by credit card, the ban on those transactions effectively cancels out their entire operations. Within weeks of Mr. Bush's signing, trading in stocks of online gambling firms in Europe plunged sharply, and several declared bankruptcy soon afterward.
European gambling firms - those that remain - have recently asked the World Trade Organization to impose up to $100 billion in compensatory sanctions, for their being shut out of the US market, and in many cases to close up shop. Today, Comm. Mandelson indicated he supported their claims, raising them to the level of a trade deficit line-item.
"When a member of the WTO defaults on its commitments, compensation is due," Mandelson remarked. "That's the case of online gambling."
In a speech before the Carnegie Endowment today, Mandelson presented a broader view of EU/US trade relations: "Close ties between Europe and the United States are still the main foundation of world politics and the global economy," he said. "We have a deep store of shared values, experiences, and interests. The EU is beginning to transform itself from an internal market into an outward looking political actor - as [French] President Sarkozy reflected in his speech to Congress this week. The EU and the US cannot dictate every contour of the global age, but that does not mean we will be dictated to either."
As Mandelson spoke, the US dollar fell on foreign currency markets to another new all-time low against the euro. At the end of trading Thursday, the dollar was worth 0.6814 euro.
The Commissioner's remarks come one day after a German appeals court overturned a lower court ruling banning online gambling operations conducted by a single firm, BWIN Interactive. The basis for the court's ruling - quite literally, according to Thomson Financial - was that it's too difficult for any court to place an outright ban on Internet users' activities, so there's no real point in trying.
The ruling in the German case could conceivably have an impact in that country on laws regulating other types of Internet activity, for similarly libertarian reasons.
Where does the federal government get authority to decide where you can and cannot spend your money? I am sure that's not in the constitution.
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|It ain't.
The gov is busy legislating morality again (under the guise of "saving your money from ID thieves").
They never learn.
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|As long as the US is getting a piece of the pie, aka tax on those gamble problem, there will be no problem. The problem here is billion flow out of the US internet gambling and the government is not seeing a penny of it.
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|I find it funny that the EU is ticked off because Americans are not allowed to blow money in their gambling establishments.
If the EU's entire infrastructure has it's foundation in the gambling realm, then it's built on an even shakier framework than a house of cards (pun intended).
Warren Buffet has said that gambling is a form of tax on the stupid. I have to agree with him. How many times do you have to hear "The house always wins!" before it actually sinks in?
If there were large numbers of people out there winning in casinos and the like, those places would be out of business. Instead - we see them reporting HUGE sums of money coming in (at least what they report) and not all that much going out. Sure, they tote out the schlepp who maybe one a few hundred thousand dollars, but how much money has he lost over the past 10 years?
You might as well just walk in and hand them your cash and go visit the free buffet.
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|re Warren Buffet has said that gambling is a form of tax on the stupid...
not entirely--
1. there are professional gamblers, so it's not just a scam. But there are suckers everywhere-- how many have lost their s***s day trading, flipping real estate, etc.
2. yes, it's really a voluntary tax-- much more pleasant, efficient & avoidance-proof than involuntary ones...
3. why is it so voluntary? one budgets money for a traditional vacation-- which is actualy guaranteed lost money: transportation/lodging/meals... in a casino those may get comped + one has a chance to recoup to win some money... what other store/business can offer the latter?
It's entertainment, pure and simple-- although like all business / retail products, costs money.
4. gambling has so many economic benefits:
A. creates so many jobs-- more than lots of other 'legitimate' business... and too numerous to mention here-- think of a large racetrack with its tens of thousands of employees PLUS a comparable amount servicing it directly/indirectly off-premises in farms/culinary/medical/etc. fields.
B. the huge amount of readily & easily-collected tax revenue.
Yeah, there may be some folks who overindulge / 'waste too much of their money and/or time' on it-- but that is true just about 'everywhere else':
alcohol/prescription drugs/tv & movies/amusement parks/games/sports/ computers/fiction books/gossip rags/music/shopping/cosmetic surgery/junk food...heck, even religion and work for some folks!!! Once society targets all overindulgences, it would expectly extend Buffett's tax on the stupid argument to other related areas like the aforementioned clueless personal investing... as well to luxury / high ticket items from food to fashion to whatever...
Heck, let's just become the USSR of Afghanistan-- thankfully the two biggest Al Qaeda leaders: Osama and Jerry Falwell are gone.
Let's face it: Buffett may have great morals(plus earmarked his fortune to charity), but he is the biggest skinflint in this country / contributes very little to the present-day economy at large... he lives like he just came out of the Great Depression: if all customers were like him, businesses all over would be going broke left and right.
We need open, reciprocal, fully-documented laws/agreements in place with other countries-- everybody collects their rightful fees: a win-win for both sides.
PS Ditto goes for undocumented aliens-- give them an SSN #... charge for it, collect all those unpaid taxes... underground economies & their attendant hipocrisy-- whether in gambling, payroll, banking-- help no one. All they do is diminish our economy with lost tax revenue & fomentation of off-shore money flight.
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|wow I thoight the Indians were just in the US
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|Internet gambling centers in Europe? interesting. Does this article actually mean that Europe has that much control over the U.S. dollar? I never realized that online gambling was so powerful. It's kinda scary when you consider that so many mid-east terrorists are doing things online. wow! This gives me something new to think about. So, do I blame one neighbors' inability to get a home loan on the other neighbors need to gamble online or do I blame Europe?
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|Where's all the free-traders on this issue? Conservatives nuke the budget and the USDollar to peso-level, and then those idiots want to tell me what I can and can't do with my money? What, is this China?
Oh wait, it's worse: it's amerika.
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|"onservatives nuke the budget and the USDollar to peso-level"
look and see who the new president is of the World Bank. The old President was an American, the new President is German. Do ya think ole GERRY the German is looking out for the EU?
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|*poke*
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|Lobbying congress is nothing new, be it be the Association of Dairy Farmers or the EU. News to me though that most of the world's gambling centers are in Europe.
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|Freest country on earth (TM).
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|Come on.. now I have heard it all.. The European Union Trade Commissioner tell the US Congress what to do?? Hillary and Nancy needs to sit this guy down.. Maybe give him a tour of our latest Aircraft carrier. That BTW protects the EU free of charge also..
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|I know, what was he thinking?
America alone reserves the right to tell other nations what to do.
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|What's even better is we've sent Mandy over to you to do it.
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|Mandy! - Only at weekends. (You can bet on that)
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|Why not? The US has been dictating to the EU for years.
Basically, we've woken up to the fact that the population of the EU is twice that of the USA and we've more money per se - a situation that increases to our benefit on a daily basis at the moment.
And we don't need the USA to protect us. In fact, we'd be a whole lot safer if US bases weren't on our soil as we're made targets by association however I'll concede that this is likely to be a situation that reverses once that whack job of a President you have finally leaves the White House.
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|People in the EU MUST NEVER FORGET THAT AL GORE invented the internet for the WHole world to use.. I do Agree that the internet should be left alone..
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|"Hillary and Nancy"? That's a laugh. Those internationalists would sell us down the river in a second.
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|He's Mandy most of the time, actually.
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