The WTO ruling, "in other words, says you'll just have to live with the consequences of what some would argue was sloppy drafting by the United States during the GATS negotiating process," Riggs said.

Riggs also sees the issue in terms of state rights, and the failure of trade negotiators to recognize differences between the states on attitudes toward gambling.

Antigua argued convincingly that the United States really couldn't claim a moral aversion to gambling because 48 out of 50 states allow some forms of legalized gambling, Riggs said. Furthermore, some states have made it legal to bet on horse races and to buy lottery tickets over the Internet.

"Antigua's argument starkly reveals why this WTO case is a state's rights issue," he said. "It argued public morals on a national level, brushing aside any argument regarding the rights of states under the U.S. federal system to regulate gambling in the interest of public morality."

People involved in researching the dispute find it ironic that Antigua, a small country with only 70,000 residents, had an economy based entirely on sugar and bananas.

But a WTO decision favoring the United States devastated Antigua's banana industry; at the same time sugar prices plummeted, leaving the country looking for economic diversification. And now Antigua is poised to wreak a different kind of havoc on national gaming laws.

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E-mail: spang@desnews.com