Caribbean Conference Will Consider US Gambling Legislation

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, New York

31 January 2003

Top level management and offshore business executives, will meet with Caribbean offshore industry regulators in Dominica at The Caribbean Offshore Business Conference and Internet Gaming Summit on 5th and 6th March 2003 at the Fort Young Hotel. The event is organized by the Caribbean Public Relations and Marketing Group (CPRMG) whose headquarters are located in Antigua, one of the most popular locations worldwide for gaming sites.

The Caribbean Offshore Business Conference and Internet Gaming Summit will focus on regulations and the future of the Offshore Business Industry in the Caribbean.

Topics at the Summit will include: The United States Position On Internet Gaming and Offshore Business; New Gaming Laws and Regulations In The Caribbean; The Impact of Antigua’s New Offshore Gaming Tax Structure; International Image Building; The Impact of Offshore Gaming On Small Jurisdictions and The Question of Money Laundering in the Caribbean.

Gaming is an important revenue earner for Antigua as well as for other Caribbean countries, but the industry is threatened by US legislation, both directly against offshore gaming in the form of James Leach's Unlawful Internet Gambling Funding Prohibition Bill, and indirectly in the form of a growing clampdown on the use of credit cards and payments services for gaming-related transactions.

Representative Leach's legislation, which failed to reach the Senate last year, has been re-introduced in the new Congress. It is described as an attempt: 'To prevent the use of certain bank instruments for unlawful Internet gambling, and for other purposes,' and would make it illegal to use credit cards or any form of electronic payment for the (supposedly illegal) offshore activity.

Partly as a result of the legislation, Visa, MasterCard and PayPal now refuse to process betting transactions by their members, which is causing major problems for the estimated 1,500 Internet betting and gaming sites, most of which are based 'offshore' in jurisdictions such as Antigua, Costa Rica, Vanuatu, Alderney, the Isle of Man and Malta.

In the case of PayPal, much used by the offshore sites, it was forced to retreat from participation in betting and gaming when it was acquired by e-Bay, but had already agreed with New York prosecutors to prevent local residents from making use of its system for betting and gaming transactions, and supported Jim Leach's anti-Internet-gaming legislation. The company said it lost about 8% of its turnover when it ceased to process betting and gaming transactions in order to comply with eBay's sensitivities

No doubt Representative Leach's bill will be high on the agenda of the conference. For further information visit the Caribbean Public Relations and Marketing Group website at www.samuelgroup.com/cprmg or email for information at cprmg@samuelgroup.com.

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