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Microcap & Penny Stocks : WINR-Secure Banking to Global Internet Gaming & E-Commerce -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mr. Miller who wrote (637)	8/7/1998 9:34:00 AM
From: Quahog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6545

Hello all: Here is an article I found that I thought might be of interest to the thread: techweb.com Overseas Policies Undermine U.S.Gambling Ban (07/20/98; 5:37 p.m. ET) By John Borland, TechWeb A handful of overseas governments are rolling out Internet-gambling policies that may undermine U.S. efforts to shut down the industry at home. Possibly as soon as next week, the Caribbean island nation of Dominica will launch a casino-style Web-gambling site owned and run by the government. Other overseas policy makers, including the government of Thailand, are exploring similar ventures, said the U.S.-based company helping Dominica launch its site. Meanwhile, a U.S.-based trade association is working with Antiguan authorities to create a new international Internet-gambling regulatory system. The Interactive Gaming Council hopes to create model regulations and possibly an international regulatory body, making it easier for companies to operate in more than one country. "The goal is to pull together the different jurisdictions that license Net-gaming and develop some kind of internationally sanctioned regulations," said Sue Schneider, chairwoman of the council. The Dominican site will likely launch next week, said Gary Borglund, president of the Minneapolis-based Global Games. The software and gaming-services company has worked with other Dominican-based gambling sites and was approached by the government several months ago to help set up the state-run page, he said. "All licensees in the country pay a small percentage of their revenues to the government as license fees," Borglund said. "I think when [policy makers] realized how much they were missing out on, they decided to become licensees themselves." Dominica's digital ground-breaking complicates the U.S. policy makers' effort to keep U.S. citizens away from betting online. Many of the existing Caribbean-based Net-gambling companies are operated by U.S. citizens, and they said they are careful not to accept U.S. bets that could break American law. Federal prosecutors targeted proprietors of several sites that ignored these rules earlier this year. But the Dominican site will take no such precautions, Borglund said. There will be disclosures on the Web page, Borglund said. "But they really don't care," he added. For several years, Dominica has been at odds with the United States over policy on banana imports, the island country's primary source of revenue, Borglund said. Dominican policy makers believe the political dispute has cut them off financially and are in no mood to cater to internal U.S. gambling laws, he added. The council's parallel move for joint international regulation is reportedly aimed at legitimizing the industry overseas in the face of strong opposition from U.S. policy makers. An internationally recognized licensing system could help establish more trust in gambling sites with valid licenses, Schneider said. Antigua is the only country to have joined the council's week-old drive for model regulations, but the group said it hopes to bring other countries on board by the time of an International Association of Gaming Regulators meeting in the Czech Republic this fall. About 22 countries license Net-gaming in some form, according to Schneider. "The intent is to try to engage in some discussion while it's still a fairly limited group," she said. These international efforts are rolling out while the U.S. Congress nears a final vote on a bill that would specifically prohibit Net-gambling, and would encourage ISPs to block Web access to Web gaming sites. U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl's (R-Ariz.) Internet Gambling Prohibition Act is awaiting a vote on the floor of the U.S. senate and could be passed by the end of this month.