Antigua defends online gambling
Antigua and Barbuda’s finance minister on Friday defended his nation’s bid to impose $3.4 billion in trade sanctions against the US, which it accuses of ignoring a World Trade Organization ruling against a U.S. online betting ban. Minister L. Errol Cort dismissed criticism of Antigua’s plan to target U.S. trademarks with $3.4 billion in penalties every year, until the United States applies its online and offshore betting ban more uniformly or allows Americans to place bets with international gambling businesses. The U.S. Congress last year barred American banks and credit card companies from processing online gambling payments, denying international gaming businesses access to the lucrative U.S. market – the largest in a $15.5 billion global online betting industry. The WTO last December upheld Washington’s right to prevent offshore gambling, but said it was illegal for the United States to target offshore casinos and online gambling without applying the same rules to American operators of off-track horse and dog race betting. 
After that ruling, Washington declared its intention to explicitly remove online gambling from its WTO treaty obligations. Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, India, Japan, Macau and the 27-nation European Union have joined Antigua in filing a separate compensation claim as a result.