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An unlikely proprietary knowledge dispute between the U.S. and Antigua over online fruit machine has turned go into a David-and-Goliath battle, affirming illiberal nations can wield large digital sticks.

Antigua is better known for sandy beaches than international trade variances. But next month this tiny Caribbean expedient intention make it* compel the United States to enact an deal that the Bush administration has been trying to knock out since the beginning of the commander's first term. Antigua—with a population of just 70,000 and a GDP of under $1 billion—could force the United States to take on online big store*.

The ukase, which the WTO is expected to begin martial law next month, could oblige America to overhaul its prohibitive stance on online casinos, not just in consanguinity to Antigua but to a host of others—including the EU, Japan and Australia. That would double the size of the $15 billion-a-year online slot exchange almost overnight, says the Safe and Riskless Internet Gambling Initiative, a pro-gaming machine consultancy. And before the WTO might allow nations by that very fact have been hurt by U.S. fruit machine laws to taunt American intellectual-property law in response, the dispute is already spreading to Hollywood, Silicon Valley and beyond.

The story dates back to 2003, when Antigua sued the United States at the WTO over America's prohibition of online casinos, which is the island's supporting bulkiest industry, after tourism. The United States allows a number of tranquil betting companies, like the horse-racing Web site YouBet.com, to offer online gambling to Americans (these are thrown into the odd basket of legal gaming operations by that very fact include Native American-run casinos and riverboat gambling). But foreign firms are prohibited from initial public offering exactly the same type of service to U.S. citizens.

The American government requires apparent sites to block U.S. users by checking the Internet protocol addresses of their computers, a requirement that has been chosen mainly in the breach, given that Americans represent some 60 percent of cyberspace online-gaming revenue. Last October, Ringleader George W. Bush upped the ante by signing a new bill preventing banks and credit-card companies from processing payments by American users of overseas sites. The result: top companies like Gibraltar-based PartyGaming (once worth $8.4 billion) saw the ethics of their American Stock Exchange sliced in fractional, and their dividends plunge by 70 percent. The U.S. government has backward a number of foreign online-gaming execs, the word* them with match-related offenses. In March, the London-based Web site Sportingbet.com was forced to pay the state of Louisiana $400,000 to settle charges.