He probably doesn't even cover Blue Steel!

(Reuters) - The United States violated global trade law by shutting down Internet gambling sites based in Antigua and elsewhere and prosecuting their owners, according to Antigua and Barbuda officials considering action in the World Trade Organization.

Antigua and Barbuda, which licenses Internet gambling companies, has waged a long battle in the WTO over U.S. efforts to keep Americans from patronizing offshore betting sites. Last week's shutdown of the three biggest online poker sites has the Caribbean nation ready to go another round.

It contends U.S. crackdowns against foreign betting sites are illegal and protectionist, since gambling for money is permitted in U.S. casinos and since online betting is allowed for state-regulated horse racing in the United States.

"I don't think there's another country in the world that puts people in jail for engaging in trade that's lawful under international law," Mark Mendel, the Caribbean government's legal advisor, told Reuters by telephone on Thursday. "It's as if Antigua would put Americans in jail for selling pineapples."

U.S. prosecutors in New York seized the domain names of three online poker sites last week, shutting them down and charging their owners with $3 billion of fraud and money laundering.

Prosecutors charged that the three foreign-registered companies tricked regulators and banks into processing illegal online gaming proceeds from U.S. customers.

U.S. prosecutors allowed two of the companies -- PokerStars, which is incorporated in the Isle of Man, and Full Tilt Poker, which is incorporated in Ireland -- to reopen their websites on Wednesday so players could withdraw funds from their accounts and so people outside the United States could resume playing.

Prosecutors said the third company, Antigua-based Absolute Poker, could do likewise if it agreed, as the others did, to prohibit U.S. customers from playing for anything of value and to appoint an independent monitor to enforce that agreement.

Antigua's finance minister, Harold Lovell, issued a statement on Wednesday calling the shutdown an illegal attempt to squelch competition.

"I am concerned that at this point in time United States authorities continue to prosecute non-domestic suppliers of remote gaming services in clear contravention of international law," Lovell said.

JOBS, REVENUE FOR ANTIGUA

Online gambling is the tiny island nation's second-largest employer after tourism, according to the Journal of International Commerce and Economics. Antigua says its betting operators have every right to offer their services to American consumers, and the WTO has agreed.

It ruled in 2005 that the United States violated international agreements on trade in services by prosecuting the operators of offshore Internet gambling sites. The WTO rejected the U.S. argument that the restrictions were necessary to protect public morality.

Antigua claimed it was losing $3.4 billion a year because of the U.S. ban, but the WTO put the figure at $21 million. In 2007, it said Antigua could retaliate by suspending that amount annually in intellectual property rights held by U.S. firms.

Government officials from the Caribbean nation are meeting this week to discuss whether to go back to the WTO to seek more sanctions against the United States because of the poker shutdown.

The U.S. prosecutors said they shut down the sites because the owners laundered money and conducted fraudulent transactions. Mendel, Antigua's lawyer, said the United States illegally blocked them from using regular credit cards and banking services.

"They're not defrauding anybody. They're not stealing money from anybody. They're just trying to run their businesses," Mendel said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73K6Z020110421

I'm pretty sure they violated international laws when they invaded Iraq too.

America: COME AT ME BRO
Rest of the world:

^^ Yea for real

International law sound nice, but when the "enforcer" of international law (the U.S.) also happens to be the entity disregarding international law, it plays out pretty much the same way as when the police officer on the street disregards the individual's rights.

yea i don't think they give a **** tbh... haven't they been saying that the UIGEA violated free trade agreements from the beginning?

You know your government is in the ****ter when you need Antigua to fight for your rights.

I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure the WTO doesn't mean **** on this subject. I think we were supposed to be paying fines for years now and haven't done so (offered intellectual property rights or some **** instead, I think).

Good to see Antigua fighting, but I wouldn't put too much stock into this.

Antigua's only gonna get a bunch of pirated movies outta this deal

**** the US

Anyone have opinions on what the buyout should be for the Durrr/Jungleman challenge? I'm escrowing for a pair of players, and given that all three of us are Americans, they have to agree on some buy out so that I can cut checks...

NVG took down the running totals, but in the "In Running" thread it says Jungleman is up 1.25M, and http://www.durrrrchallenge.com/ confirms... that is over 19,335 hands (again, according to the site).

How often do you guys think Durrrr wins here?

like 0 or less than 5%

Full Tilt should created private HU play money tables and durrr and jungle can agree to settle up offline.

There should be some stats guys who can give a pretty good answer to durr's chances, but yea its under 5%...

Hmm they might feel that comes close to violating their agreement with the DoJ though, probably don't want to risk it. Well then they should pay someone to make some simple HU poker software with multiple tables. With the amount of money being played for, the cost to make such a program should be pretty insignificant.

Yea considering I have Jungles side on this bet I wanna get paaaid.

I think the fairest way to do this is figure out the standard deviation and do the stats from that. I'm sure someone has all the hands imported into a PT DB.

I had money on Jungle too and it would be good to come up with a standardized consensus

Yeah I remember having money on Jungle's side too. $1k more play money would feel good right now

Yeah, I was thinking 9 to 1 as a favor to the guy with the Durrrr money, only because no one with a bet on Durrrr right now would ever buy out, they'd let it ride... which is sort of the problem with agreeing on a buyout figure.

I like Imsa's idea.

Durrrr has to win at 5ptbb over the next 30k hands to tie/sneak out the win... the problem with the SD method is estimating how much over Durrrr's true winrate 5ptbb is. I think we all agree jungleman has an edge, but just how big?

I doubt those that have Durr would agree with this. Well they might but they probably aren't going to admit it. Just figure it from 0 ptbb.

Wrote my first post for Syous' new website today for those who're interested ( http://www.highstakeslife.com/ ).

2p2 suing Dutch Boyd for....? (about 5 min in)

http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/the-sh...-part-2-18738/

^^ WTF? Just jungle being extremely awkward?

It looks like he thought Ivey wasn't showing up and then got sad when he did.

nm im an idiot. I dunno what's going on there.

nah that was after he had busted ivey. looks like he was just really happy with the win and then decided that he might be rubbing it in. but it is still a hilarious gif because he looks like my dog used to when I'd come home and she'd pissed on the carpet.

Looks more like he was excited, looked around, and accidentally stared into Ivey's eyes as he walked by and then his soul sank.