Antigua bid for gambling sanction on US | IXGAMES
Arbitrators will decide on Antigua’s attempt to impose 3.44 billion dollars in fines on the United States over a dispute on Internet gambling, the World Trade Organisation said Tuesday. A meeting of the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body was informed that Washington lodged the arbitration request on Monday, objecting to the level of the sanctions and procedural issues. “The United States would emphasise that the level of Antigua’s request is patently excessive,” the United States said in a statement to the meeting. “In particular the level sought by Antigua and Barbuda is several times higher than Antigua and Barbuda’s annual Gross Domestic Product of all goods and services,” it added. However, the United States announced that it “accepts” the outcome of earlier WTO rulings that found US restrictions on cross border Internet gambling were illegal. 
The WTO ruled in March that Washington had not complied with previous rulings on the dispute, which enabled Antigua to seek sanctions. An arbitration process, which normally judges the correct level of sanctions, normally takes about two months, a trade source said. Tuesday’s meeting had been set to examine Caribbean island’s request for sanctions, which it lodged a month ago. The Caribbean island, with a population of about 69,000, is a centre for offshore Internet gaming operations, attracting large numbers of US residents to its online casino-style games and betting services. Experts say the vast majority of online gamblers in the United States use about 2,000 websites that are largely located in offshore centres like Antigua and Gibraltar. Americans are the biggest gamblers in the world, accounting for 80 percent of an estimated 12 billion dollars generated by online gambling.