by emmasdad » Mon Jan 29, 2007 5:27 pm
The first article is fairly lacking in substance. Oh, and I don't think that Neteller hired anyone to advise them on how to comply with the SEC. Neteller went public and was until recently traded on the London exchange. I am not a securities expert, but I don't think that companies selling shares to the public in a foreign market are subject to US regulatory oversight as a condition of offering those shares for sale on a foreign market. Here is the link to the last 6 month's graph of how the stock has performed: The author of the article is incredibly dismissive of the US DoJ's use of the 1961 wire act to charge the Neteller executives arested recently because, she argues, the 1961 wire act does not make online poker illegal. Whether or not the wire act covers online poker, I think that she is performing a complete disservice to the readers of Cardplayer because she ignores the fact that the undercover sting done by the DoJ was completely related to sportsbetting, and not poker.
The second article is about the structure of the Antiguan corporate structure and domestic oversight of Antiguan based internet gaming operations. I have no knowledge that the information is inaccurate, other than considering the source.
The third article simply recounts the Antiguan side of the WTO complaint and predicts that the US will be deemed not in compliance with the WTO ruling that the US had to either allow Antigua to participate in the "remote betting" market in the US or else make remote betting illegal across the board. Nothing in there comes as a great surprise, it is similar to the second article in that it is basically a trip report.
Nortonesque: Thanks for that explaination. I looked into it a little bit more, and it seems that Antigua needs some European support for any sanctions. The EU was a party in interest to the WTO suit, but the EU is dealing with its own internal conflicts about internet gaming, with the UK looking to license online gaming companies later this year and Germany and Italy looking to ban internet gaming, while France and Sweden want to limit internet gaming among their respective citizens to state run outlets.
It looks to me like the US internet poker playing community's best hope is in the WTO. I am not as confident as some that the Justice department under a Democratic administration would take any different tact than the DoJ is taking right now.