Casinos Good, Online Casinos Still Bad

Yesterday, in a spectacular day of horse-trading, the U.S. offered to open certain select industries to deeper competition from European companies in exchange for them getting the hell off our backs about online gambling . Under the rules of the WTO, since we allow some gambling, we aren't supposed to lock other countries of the industry (like, say, by making online gambling illegal). Antigua and Barbuda sued us, Canada, Japan and the EU joined in and we lost because we're pretty clearly not exactly doing it for "moral" reasons as much to limit competition for the U.S. gaming industry, which has some great lobbyists. In order to continue violating our commitments at the WTO to protect the casinos from competition for the cherished market of gamblers too lazy to normally get off their asses , the U.S. has agreed to limit the compliant trade protections it offers other, unrelated industries. See, no worries! Free trade might not be fair, but it's also not really that free! [ Financial Times ]