CIOs should have no fears that employees will be diverted during the workday to online gambling from overseas. A new agreement between the United States, the European Union, Japan and Canada will keep the foreign Internet gambling market closed to U.S. residents. At the same time, the United States is keeping the door open a crack as it continues talks about the gambling market with India, Antigua and Barbuda, Macau, and Costa Rica.

"We are pleased to confirm that the United States has reached agreement... with Canada, the EU, and Japan," Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office, said in a statement several hours after the EU announced details of the deal it had reached with Washington last week. European gambling companies unsuccessfully argued that the EU was entitled to as much as $100 billion in compensation for being denied access to the U.S. market. But the idea never got off the ground and apparently has gone nowhere. There is a positive note in this development, too. The agreement "involves commitments to maintain our liberalized markets for warehousing services, technical testing services, research and development services, and postal services relating to outbound international letters," Hamel said.

For more on this ban on overseas Internet gambling
- Check out this Red Herring Article [1]