The EU are looking into the U.S. online gambling rules

Last Monday the European Union has launched a campaign to investigate on the current U.S. online gambling rules and prosecutions. The union will be looking into the list of U.S. prosecutions on outside the U.S./Foreign online gambling operators. Accusation of discrimination would certainly give room for the World Trade Organization (WTO) to open another case.

Most of the complaints come from European online gambling companies, namely BWIN Interactive Entertainment and PartyGaming. The companies are accusing the U.S. that they have singled out foreign gambling firms.

The European Union will be investigating the accusations within the next 5-7 months and then decide whether they would be able to launch another WTO proceedings against the U.S. When asked about the accusations EU trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson replied “The U.S. has the right to address legitimate public policy concerns relating to Internet gambling, but discrimination against EU companies cannot be part of the policy mix,”

A representative of the U.S. Department replied that they do not have an immediate comment on the European Union’s decision to further investigate and file a complaint at the WTO. However the European Union said that their decision would not affect in any matter the compensation package the two agreed upon last December.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 3:26 am and is filed under Casino News, Europe Gambling, Online Casino, USA gambling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.