American Debate Continues: 1

The issue with online casinos in America has gone on for years and the debate is still a heated one. The World Trade Organization has announced that they may not allow the current administration to keep the legislation against the online casino industry in place. This is something that has been debated heavily as it is believed that legalizing and regulating the online casino industry in the United States would provide much needed economic relief and tax revenue. This is an inevitable decision that the United States has to make sometime in the near future, especially as the European Commission recently released their report that had all of the detailed complaints against the United States from the internet gambling industry.

The legalization of online casinos and internet gambling is something that is becoming a growing trend in the world. The stance that the United States has taken on the issue has given the online casino markets a big and complicated situation to deal with. Countries like China have already made up their minds on the fact that they will control the content that all of their citizens are able to access by filtering the content through the government. That particular stance seems particularly un American. So the mere thought of controlling the content that is able to be accessed by US citizens is something that has outraged many citizens of the United States as they do not feel like the government should tell them what they can and cannot access on their own home computers.

There has been progress on the legislation on the online casino front. Representative Barney Frank has been working to try and get a deal that works for everyone, even online casinos. Frank said, "This is further argument for repealing the law which currently restricts the personal freedom of American adults to gamble online. This report particularly shows the inconsistency of the Bush Administration, which frequently argued we had to abide by the WTO even when it cost American jobs, but ignored the WTO when it didn’t fit the conservatives’ ideological beliefs." Frank has worked on the latest proposition that he has presented to Congress time and time again. This time there is hope that he will succeed under the new administration.