World Trade Organization to decide on Internet Gambling

World Trade Organization appeals panel is expected to rule Thursday on whether the United States should drop prohibitions on Americans placing bets in online casinos - a decision that could open the nation to Internet gambling.

Last year, a WTO report confirmed a preliminary ruling in a dispute pitting the United States against the tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, saying the U.S. ban represented an unfair trade barrier.

The United States contends that Internet gambling should be prohibited because it violates some U.S. state laws.

U.S. trade officials disagreed, saying that negotiators involved in the Uruguay Round of global trade talks, which created the WTO in 1995, clearly intended to exclude gambling.

Antiguan authorities also argued that restrictions that barred U.S. residents from betting at offshore casinos were harming their country's efforts to diversify its economy.