Gambling News - July 2005 Edition

"Online Casinos May Move to Central America to Avoid American Bans"

U.S. Online gambling laws could drive online gamblers to Central American online casinos

Some Internet gambling companies are a little nervous about the ability of Americans to play at online casinos based in Antigua, because of the ambiguous nature of the recent World Trade Organization ruling regarding U.S. policy toward online gambling. However, CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, could provide hope for those companies because it does not contain the “public morals” clause that the WTO agreement contains. This means, therefore, that the U.S. cannot argue that based on the U.S. duty to uphold public morals, Americans should not be allowed to access Internet gambling sites in Central America.

But U.S. government officials aren’t too concerned about their ability to prohibit online gambling, because states would still have the right to impose their own gambling or anti-gambling laws even if the Internet gambling sites are based in Costa Rica or other Central American nations. CAFTA, therefore, may not be providing the glimmer of hope that the Internet gambling companies were anticipating. CAFTA contains a grandfather clause which allows existing gambling laws in the United States to remain, allowing different states to prevent their residents from playing at online casinos. Of course, this does not apply to all states in America since some do already permit some forms of gambling. In this case, the states that do permit gambling would not be able to prevent their residents from gambling at Internet sites.

On the other hand, Utah and Hawaii, both of which do prohibit gambling, could continue their prohibition on gambling and even extend it to online gambling.

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