Banking lobbyists are warning the US Treasury that regulations proposed in the wake of last year’s sweeping anti-gambling law will be impossible to comply with unless the Bush administration clarifies its conflicting views on online betting.

The Financial Services Roundtable, which represents dozens of banks and other financial services firms, said it was “very concerned” that adoption of the rules could impose “significant” and costly compliance burdens on banks.

“The statute and the proposed rule expand the role of financial institutions to police laws that are more appropriate for law enforcement agencies,” the Roundtable said in public filings to the Treasury and Federal Reserve.

The criticism raises new questions about whether regulators will be able to enforce a law that, in effect, requires banks and other institutions to know the purpose and legality of payments in an industry – online gambling – in which federal and state rules often conflict.

The proposed rules would require US financial companies with designated payments systems to have policies and procedures that are “reasonably designed” to prevent payments being made to illegal gambling businesses. According to the US Treasury, illegal gambling consists of any bet or wager involving the internet that is illegal in the state in which the bet is made.

The proposed rules were drafted after the passage last year of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, a bill that wiped billions of dollars in value from non-US gambling websites.

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The United States has reached a deal with the European Union, Japan and Canada to keep its Internet gambling market closed to foreign companies, but is continuing talks with India, Antigua and Barbuda, Macau and Costa Rica, U.S. trade officials said on Monday.

“We are pleased to confirm that the United States has reached agreement … with Canada, the EU and Japan,” Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, said in a statement several hours after the EU had announced details of the deal it had reached with Washington.

The decision is a disappointment for European online gambling companies who hoped a case brought by Antigua several years ago at the World Trade Organization gave them a foothold to get back in the U.S. market after being kicked out by Congress last year.

In an April 2005 victory for Antigua, the WTO said a U.S. law allowing only domestic companies to provide horse-race gambling services discriminated against foreign firms.

But rather than open up the U.S. online horse-race gambling market, Congress tightened restrictions on other forms of Internet gambling last year by making it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.

The Bush administration also announced in May that it was retroactively excluding gambling and betting services from market-opening commitments it made as part of the 1994 world trade agreement, saying that U.S. trade negotiators had made a mistake by not expressly excluding them at the time.

That opened the door for the European Union and other trading partners to seek compensation from the United States in the form of increased access to another U.S. service market.

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Online gambling firms were dealt a big blow yesterday after Europe agreed to settle a trade dispute that could have forced the US to legalize Internet betting.

European online gambling sites, which had to fold their cards in the US last year when Congress passed legislation to crack down on betting over the Web, had claimed they were owed $100 billion in lost profit potential.

The Internet gambling industry was betting the trade war would lead to legally recognized gambling in the US – the largest market for online betting – and allow the sites to open up shop again.

But the odds of that happening look a lot less likely now that the European Union has decided to drop the issue in exchange for favorable trade opportunities in other industries, including sectors such as mail and courier services, research and development and storage.

Hundreds of online gambling sites still operate in the US.

But last year’s stepped-up bid by the authorities to stamp out online gambling led legitimate companies such as BetonSports, PartyGaming, and 888 Holdings to close shop in the US, wiping out billions from their stock market values.

The Poker Players Alliance, a Washington lobbying group, is still hopeful Congress will make online gambling in the US legit and regulated.

“This won’t be the end of our lobbying efforts just because this decision was made,” John Pappas, the group’s executive director, told The Post.

The EU, Canada and Japan each reached agreements with the US on the issue.

Still left to settle is Antigua.

The international trade dispute erupted when the tiny island nation claimed the US violated its international treaty commitments by going after offshore online gambling outfits without cracking down on American operators offering remote betting on horse and dog racing.

The World Trade Organization agreed.

In response, the US removed Internet gambling from its WTO treaty obligations, raising the ire of much bigger trading partners, including the EU.

The EU’s decision to settle yesterday was a huge disappointment for European online gambling companies, which had hoped the WTO dispute started by Antigua would get them back in the US market.

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U.S. Rep. Julia Carson never forgot what it was like to go to the poor-relief office to ask for food as a child when her mother was sick.

Carson spent a lifetime speaking up for those who couldn’t speak for themselves: the poor, the homeless, the victims of discrimination.

“A lot of people get elected to positions and forget that they serve all the people,” said John M. Thomas, former president of Community Action of Greater Indianapolis. “She never forgot that.”

“Her weapons of choice are blunt talk and a dollop of charm,” the Congressional Quarterly’s Politics in America once said of her.

A steadfast Democrat, Carson opposed President Bush’s request for authority to wage war in 2002 and, in 1999, won enactment of a measure awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to civil rights figure Rosa Parks.
But to her constituents, she was just Julia.

The congresswoman — one of only 25 black women who have served in Congress, one in the Senate and 24 in the House — was the daughter of an unwed teenage mother who made her living in Indianapolis cleaning houses for the rich. Her mother’s life was one from which she drew strength in later years.

“I never thought I would even be a state senator or working for Congress,” Carson said in an interview in 1996.

When she did start her political career, Carson had a fear much greater than losing. As a child, she had a stutter so bad that she couldn’t say her own name, and she worried that it would resurface.

Often she would deliberately arrive late at campaign appearances to avoid being seen with opponents whom she considered to be better-spoken.

But people who underestimated her did so at their own peril. She never lost an election.

“I told somebody, she may be an African-American woman, but she reminds me of a redneck county judge when she works the room,” President Bill Clinton once said.

“She kind of sidles into these rooms in Washington, and all these self-important people are there in their expensive suits, using these big words. And then Julia sort of sidles out, and she’s got whatever it is she came in for, and they still don’t know what happened.”

Carson was first elected to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1972 and after two terms was elected to the Indiana Senate, where she served until 1990. She then served as Center Township trustee, a post she held until she was elected to Congress in 1996.

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Full Coverage

PPA Note: U.S. Rep. Julia Carson was a co-sponsor of H.R.2046

The European Commission dealt a blow to European online gaming
companies on Monday when it accepted a U.S. offer of openings in other
sectors to compensate for closing the U.S. gambling market to foreign
firms.

European companies such as PartyGaming and bwin Interactive
Entertainment had hoped the European Union executive might shun a
settlement and fight on instead to restore their ability to operate in
the world’s biggest market.

Shares in PartyGaming were down 4.1 percent at 29 pence at 0700 EST, and bwin stock was down 2 percent at 26.11 euros.

“A bilateral agreement was signed in Geneva, which provides EU
service suppliers with new trade opportunities in the U.S. postal and
courier, research and development, storage and warehouse sectors,” the
Commission said in a statement.

“The U.S. also made concessions in the testing and analysis services
sector,” the Commission said, adding it would still try to dissuade the
United States from discriminating against foreign operators.

A representative of Europe’s online gaming sector — which saw
billions of euros of market value wiped out by the U.S. restrictions –
said the announcement was a disappointment.

“The Commission can still press for an opening up of the market, but
the leverage of the outstanding (compensation) negotiations has been
taken away,” said Clive Hawkswood, chief executive of the Remote
Gambling Association.

The case dates to April 2005 when the World Trade Organisation ruled
that a U.S. law allowing only domestic companies to provide online
horse-race gambling services discriminated against foreign companies.

Last year, Congress tightened restrictions on Internet gambling by
making it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments
to online gambling sites.

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A World Trade Organization decision on the amount of retaliation that Antigua and Barbuda can impose on the United States in an Internet gambling trade dispute will not come out on Friday as expected, a U.S. trade official said.

“We understand the report has been delayed,” said Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.

The tiny Caribbean nation has been in a long-running fight to offer its Internet gambling services in the United States. The case is being closely watched by European Internet gambling companies, which were pushed out of the U.S. market by Congress last year.

In an April 2005 victory for Antigua, the WTO said a U.S. law allowing only domestic companies to provide online horse-race gambling services discriminated against foreign firms.

Antigua, which built an online gambling industry to replace declining tourism revenues, has asked permission to impose $3.44 billion a year worth of “cross-retaliation” on the United States.

It wants the WTO’s authorization to suspend copyright protections on American movies, music and software so its domestic manufacturers can export those products to the United States and potentially other markets.

The United States says Antigua is entitled to only $500,000 in damages in the dispute.

Mark Mendel, a private attorney representing Antigua, said he was told the WTO was putting the final touches on the report, which also needs to be translated.

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Antigua and Barbuda expects to receive a big damage award from the World Trade Organization in a long-running Internet gambling dispute with the United States, a lawyer for the Caribbean nation said on Monday.

“We feel pretty confident about our case, to be honest. We really feel like we have the upper hand here,” Mark Mendel, a private attorney representing Antigua, told Reuters ahead of an expected ruling by a WTO arbitration panel on Friday. In an April 2005 ruling, the WTO found a U.S. law allowing only domestic companies to provide online horse-race gambling services discriminated against foreign companies.

The United States has argued Antigua is entitled to only $500,000 in compensation because of that ban. But Antigua — which built an online gambling industry to replace declining tourist revenues — has asked permission to impose $3.44 billion a year worth of “cross-retaliation” on the United States.

It specifically wants permission to suspend copyright protections on American movies, music and software so its domestic manufacturers can export those products to the United States and potentially other markets, Lendel said.

“I think we provided plenty of proof to justify our figure … We feel pretty confident it should be a high number,” Mendel said. “I think there’s no doubt that we’re going to get the ability to cross-retaliate.”

Last year, the U.S. Congress tightened restrictions on Internet gambling by making it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.

In addition, the Bush administration announced in May it was retroactively excluding gambling services from market-opening commitments it made as part of the 1994 world trade agreement.

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Not so long ago, poker was just a game. A few years back it emerged as a fad. Then, largely because of television, it morphed into a national phenomenon, if not an industry.

Is it any wonder, then, that some are aiming to turn it into a higher cause?

A Harvard Law School professor and a group of his students formed an organization this fall — the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society — dedicated to demonstrating that poker has educational benefits. They argue that the game, which is probability-based and requires risk assessment, situational analysis and a gift for reading people, can be an effective teaching tool, whether for middle school math or in business and law classes.

“I see great advantage in hitting kids as early as sixth grade, when they’re dropping out of math,” said Charles R. Nesson, the Harvard Law School professor who began the society with a group of his students. “I’m thinking of kids who are into their video games but instead of Halo-3 and World of Warcraft, we lead them into a game environment that has real intellectual depth to it, and feeds their curiosity rather than snuffs it out.”

The society has been working to establish chapters at campuses nationwide. This semester, it has sponsored seminars at Harvard featuring academics and authors to evangelize the wonders of poker. In the spring it plans to hold a workshop on using poker to teach math to children, to be held at the Smith Leadership Academy, a Boston charter school for at-risk kids in the sixth through eighth grades. “We see great potential for reaching our students in an innovative way,” said Karmala Sherwood, the school’s headmaster.

Others see great potential for creating gambling addiction. Chad Hills, a gambling analyst for Focus on the Family, the conservative Christian group, described as “moronic” any policy that encourages more school-age children to gamble.

“Kids are extremely vulnerable to gambling addiction,” said Mr. Hills, who likened poker to a “gateway drug” that leads to the harder stuff like craps and slot machines.

Professor Nesson, who also helped to found the law school’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said that even before creating the society he consulted with Howard Shaffer, director of the division on addictions at the Harvard Medical School, to better understand the downside of the game. “I don’t intend to push these problems away,” he said.

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The Gambrills Elks Lodge busted by police for an illegal low-stakes poker game was reprimanded last night for violating its liquor license, but the club faces no other sanctions.

“All the fraternal lodges that I know are good neighbors to the community,” said Thomas E. Riggins of the county Board of License Commissioners, the agency that oversees the club’s license and could have revoked it. “And I refuse to believe that you guys were not acting as good neighbors.”

The club faced losing its liquor license and additional fines for an eight-man Texas Hold’em game held weekly in the back room of the lodge.

Acting on an anonymous tip in August, the liquor board dispatched investigators to the billiards room of the private club, where police detectives seized $400, a casino-style poker table and a cache of poker chips.

Gambling anywhere in Anne Arundel is illegal, and the practice also violates provisions of the county’s liquor laws.

“They thought it was a friendly game of pok-er,” said county police Detective Elmer Aulton, who made the bust.

The anonymous tipster who set off the bust had walked up to liquor board Chief Inspector Van Lee as he pumped gas at an Edgewater service station, Mr. Lee testified.

“How much longer will the liquor board allow the Elks Club to hold poker games?” Mr. Lee recalled the man asking.

Although the August bust was the second time in a year that the liquor board received an anonymous complaint about poker games in the club, the three-member commission accepted the explanation of club leaders.

“We can call it being naive,” Eugene D. Mattison, an attorney and the Elks’ leading knight told the commission. “Needless to say, we hadn’t read the law. We have now.”

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They called his bluff and forced him to fold.

Special agents from the state gambling commission arrested the owner of a Mill Creek restaurant Monday night, accusing him of holding an illegal game of Texas Hold ‘em poker.

The owner of Jet Bar and Grill in Mill Creek, an Edmonds man, 31, was booked into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of operating gambling activity without a license, a felony.

“They did not have a gambling license, and the reason we regulate is we want to make sure it’s run fair and honest,” said Susan Arland, a commission spokeswoman.

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