Several days ago, just days after the U.S. settlement with Europe, Japan, and Canada, the WTO awarded Antigua $21 million in annual reparations for losses to the Antiguan economy caused by the American ban on Internet gambling. Because tariffs on U.S. goods would hurt the Antiguan economy far more than the U.S. economy, the WTO gave the okay for Antigua to recoup its losses in the form of copyright infringement, essentially making the country a haven for movie, music, and software piracy.
Had the U.S. not settled with the world’s economic powerhouses, we might have seen a massive battle unfold between the U.S. entertainment industry and the moral majority types behind the gambling ban. That doesn’t mean the settlement is something to be proud of. On the contrary, it’s pretty despicable. It’s bad enough that the federal government feels it’s proper and appropriate to tell American citizens what they’re permitted to do on their own time in their own homes with their own money. But it’s also willing to spend tens of billions of dollars of money paid to the government by those same citizens in the form of taxes to ensure it retains that power, and that it’s jurisdiction to enforce that power covers the entire globe.
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The U.S. could have actually resolved all of this and preserved its precious gambling prohibition by simply making the prohibition uniform. But that wouldn’t do. Just as important as the ban on Internet gambling activities such as sports betting, online casinos and online poker were the carve-outs for politically-protected special interest groups—lotteries and horse racing. So the tens of billions the U.S. government is paying to settle the trade dispute is not only to preserve the gambling ban, it’s to preserve the congressionally-granted monopoly on online wagering for interests with more political clout than poker players.
Part of the problem is the mentality that comes with this kind of legislation. The gambling ban seems to have been supported by two similar approaches to governance that, although they come from opposite sides of the political spectrum, are generally quite similar.
The other reason even non-gamblers ought to be concerned about all of this is that it will be difficult for the government to enforce this ban without giving law enforcement some exceptionally broad powers. Federal authorities can’t arrest the owners of gaming sites because they’re based offshore, in countries where gambling is legal (unless they’re foolish enough to come to the U.S.). The only option, then, is to go after the gamblers themselves. That means deputizing banks, credit card companies, and Internet Service Providers to start monitoring their customers spending and web surfing habits. Because the penalties against these companies for violating the law are likely to be severe and because the law specifically exempts them from liability for over-enforcement, your bank and ISP are likely to err on the side of banning legal transactions and erroneously reporting you to federal authorities than to err on the side of leaving you alone.
