Does the Law Violate U.S. Free Trade Obligations?
Not only is UIGA likely to be ineffective, it may also violate the U.S.’s free trade obligations – in particular, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which covers, among other services, “recreational services.” Back in 2003, the small Caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda, which host offshore online casinos, complained to the World Trade Organization (WTO) that the U.S. was violating GATS in that it both allowed its own casinos to offer Internet gambling services in the U.S., and prohibited other companies to offer the same services from abroad. In 2004, a WTO panel ruled that the U.S. has to bring its laws into conformity with GATS. But UIGA seems to do just the opposite – making it all the harder to gamble with companies abroad, and easier to gamble domestically. (Meanwhile, U.S. authorities have arrested officials of UK-based online gaming companies, in another illustration of the double standard.) Even if the U.S. continues to ignore the Caribbean nations and the
