Poker Superstars
Phil Hellmuth
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United States Settles WTO Conflict over Online Gambling |
Immediately after Tuesday's post about the United States' conflict with the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding the U.S.'s unwillingness to agree to an accord that would recognize gambling as legal, the United States settled the matter with the European Union to some bizarre, if not definitive, results.
A settlement between the United States and the European Union, as well as Japan and Canada, went into effect Tuesday afternoon. Though the States did not change their stance in opening up the U.S. gambling market to those countries, it did pay a settlement package to relieve some of the incurred losses and tension.
The EU claims that they will continue to press "for non discriminatory treatment in U.S. internet gambling legislation," but this settlement was seen to reduce the problem that had led them previously to consider sanctions against the States.
This announcement of the WTO settlement had a negative effect on U.S. gaming company stocks, which were seen to drop by 5.79% following the announcement.
Obviously this kind of a settlement brings up some pretty hefty questions as to the logic behind the U.S.'s stance on the matter. Why would we pay other countries for damages against their product? This matter just continues to get more and more asinine the further it goes along. A representative for the U.S. trade commission explained that their position "involves commitments to maintain our liberalized markets for warehousing services, technical testing services, research and development services and postal services relating to outbound international letters."
The amount paid to preserve the ban remains undisclosed to the public. Fair, right?
Not only that, but there are several other countries now waiting their turn for compensation. Next in line we've got India, Costa Rica and Macau, each wanting to be compensated for the fact that here in the 'freest country on Earth' we don't let our citizens gamble with their companies.
Who knows how much longer this will go on? How much money the government will toss into other countries in order to preserve their supposedly moral stance against another pastime?
I don't get it. I don't think they get it either. |
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