Britain criticizes U.S. on-line gambling ban

Britain’s culture secretary on Friday compared the U.S. crackdown on on-line gambling to the failed alcohol ban of the Prohibition as she prepared to host an international summit on Internet gambling next week.Tessa Jowell warned that the U.S. ban on Internet gambling would make unregulated offshore sites the modern equivalent of speakeasies, illegal bars that opened in 1920s America when alcohol was banned during Prohibition. U.S. Congress caught the gambling industry by surprise earlier this month when it added to an unrelated bill a provision that would make it illegal for banks and credit-card companies to settle payments for on-line gambling sites. President George W. Bush signed the law Oct. 14. Several London-based Internet gambling companies and a handful in Europe and Australia subsequently sold or shut down their U.S. operations, losing around 80 per cent of their combined business in the process. U.S. officials have declined to participate in Tuesday’s gambling summit in London, where legislators from 30 countries will discuss ways to regulate the industry, including the protection of minors and keeping the industry free of crime. It argues that the U.S. ban is in direct contravention to a ruling by the World Trade Organization last year that the United States amend some of its legislation to permit Antiguan gambling operations to offer their services to U.S. citizens on a level playing field. Under new British gambling laws, on-line operators have a social responsibility duty written into licences and policed by the independent Gambling Commission watchdog. There are three choices: you can prohibit, like the U.S., do nothing or regulate, like we have, Jowell said. I firmly believe we have chosen the path that will do the most to protect children and vulnerable people and keep out crime.