The UK-based Remote Gambling Association yesterday pushed out a press release announcing how excited they are about the EU sending a delegation to America to discuss America's unlawful stance regarding online gambling.

If you are not aware of the background of this issue, the article gives a half-way decent history of the dispute. I would urge you to browse my past blog posts for more in-depth information.

Now, I am usually somewhat optimistic about meetings like this. After all, discussion is good.

However, this time I'm not so sure.

Maybe it's the looming end of summer that is depressing me. Or the fact that my golf game has actually gotten worse this year. Or maybe I'm just a pessimistic person in general.

Either way, I just don't see what can possibly be achieved in this discussion.

Let's look at the facts:

- This is the second attempt at simply arranging a meeting. Back in June, the USTR re-scheduled by requested more preparation time. Yeah, right. Like they don't have a filing cabinet FULL of information on this topic. Simply put, America is not interested in discussing this.

- The WTO is a fading organization, and it really doesn't have the teeth necessary to enforce agreements. If you don't believe me, why not browse through the fiasco that is the Doha Development Round of WTO discussions. In short, discussions have been going on since 2001 and have recently stalled completey, not to be resumed unutil sometime in 2009.

- There is an election coming. While this is arguably good news since there will undoubtably be a regime change in January, it also tends to indicate that there will be very few policy changes before any election takes place.

- The current federal administration is inarguably and admittedly the most politicized federal administration in memory. There are partisan political appointees in virtually every level of government, including the USTR and the Justice Department. These people have spent the last eight years operating with a very political agenda. They also know that in a few months, one way or another, they will probably be out of a job.

Do you think these political beasts are going to abandon their stances right now? If anything, they are more likely to try to milk every last minute of the next few months trying to put one last meaningful stamp on their legacies. Again, they certainly won't be entertaining any serious policy changes.

There is a reason why the last few months have seen a major increase in the number of payment processing issues - the government is raising the pressure on the industry in a last-gasp attempt to do as much damage as possible before they lose their power.

- The EU is fighting its own internal battles and should really be trying to get its own house in order before it asks America to change it's stance. Holland recently enacted a major tax against online gambling. France, Germany, and Sweden have all tried or are trying to find a way to outlaw foreign online gambling companies to protect their own internal gambling products. Asking America to comply with a law that the EU's own states don't even honor is questionable, at best.

All in all, I'm pretty pessimistic that much is going to change at all for the positive until next spring, once a new American administration is in place. If anything, I fear things might get worse before they get better.