A Big Victory for Online Bingo and Online Bingo Players

This past week, Online Bingo and gaming companies based out of Antigua (which includes your very own CyberBingo) won a David and Goliath battle against the US Justice Department following the WTO (World Trade Organization) Appellate body ruling on banning Internet gaming.

Brief History - Antigua setup one of the world’s first jurisdictions to license interactive gaming (includes, Online bingo, Casino Games and Sports betting) companies in 1994.

In 2003, Antigua filed a complaint with the WTO, that the US policy on Internet Gambling was depriving Antigua and Barbuda from a significant chunk of revenue and as a result were in violation to the free trade agreements. The US counteracted that online gambling was to be dismissed from a 1994 global agreement on free trade that helped set up the WTO. Then the US changed its argument towards moralistic grounds “to protect the US public morals and maintain public order”. Okay if online gaming is immoral how come the US Justice Department doesn’t crack down online porn? (That’s an entire different discussion, but I’m sure you see my point here).

Anyway, Antigua won an initial WTO decision against the US Justice Department in November of 2004, agreeing with Antigua’s argument that “US actions to criminalize Internet betting violates global laws”. The US Justice Department appealed that decision in March of 2005 which forces the US to allow gambling sites based out of Antigua to accept gaming transactions from U.S. gamblers.

How does this affect you? Okay, you may probably be wondering how this affects you and your joy of playing online bingo at CyberBingo. Unfortunately you may have been at the receiving end of the stick when your purchase is given the unfriendly ‘declined’ message when attempting to fund your bingo account. This was the result of threats of prosecution from the US Justice Department to US banks who processed transactions from Online gaming companies – the birth of the Gaming Code as we know it today – “7995 gaming code”.

In addition to the Gaming Code, Online Bingo Sites, as well as other Online gaming sites have had their main channels of advertising cut off; such as media channels like Google Ad words and the Yahoo! Overture Pay-per-click. As a result, majority of online bingo companies have turned to other means of advertising – Contextual and behavioral advertising, AKA Pop-ups!!! (We will talk about pop-ups on an upcoming post)

With the final WTO ruling, it’s expected that bingo players that play at an Antiguan Offshore gaming site will see the friendly “Approved” message when attempting to fund via their MasterCard or Visa card. Once and for all this will end threats of prosecution from the US Justice Department to US companies who choose to do business with Antigua offshore gaming companies. Credit card companies will be allowed to conduct business with Antiguan based companies which will allow you to fund your bingo account freely without worrying about the gaming code.

Conclusion. Here is the big BUT. Only if the ruling of the WTO is obeyed will that make your gaming experience more pleasant. Which will mean less intrusive pop ups, no more 7995 gaming code on your Visa and MasterCard transaction.

On the other hand, if the WTO ruling is ignored, we at CyberBingo will continue providing alternate easy-to-use funding methods. So for now, we can only wait and see how things unfold in the next couple of weeks.

After all, we’re just providing an entertainment value to discerning bingo players! Maybe the next step would be to close the doors to all land based bingo halls in your community.

Until next time.

You can download the findings and conclusion of the WTO here - pdf format (5 pages; 17KB)