A British businessman is begging the US government for taxation without representation in an attempt to make it regulate online gambling, it emerged today.
Mr Nigel Payne, chief executive of London based Sportingbet, has placed adverts in American papers featuring an Englishman holding an umbrella under the slogan: "Please sir, can I pay some tax?"
In a case of the Boston Tea Party in reverse, he has even hired an American lobbying firm to try to persuade Congress to force his company to pay £7.5 million annually to US coffers.
The move follows attempts by several Congressmen to ban online gambling in America after years of confusion about its legal position.
Currently Americans are free to place bets on the Internet, but online betting companies are not allowed to set up shop in the US.
Mr Payne said the US should follow the British example where the Government has enforced strong regulation on the business and takes 15 per cent in tax.
"This is a massive, massive industry which cannot be stopped," he said. "It is impossible to prevent people going online and putting on bets, so it is far more sensible to regulate it and take billions of dollars of taxes in return.
Half of the world's regular internet gamblers live in the US. Sportingbet alone has over 360,000 active US customers but is not subject to federal and state legal requirements.
But the company confessed to some initial problems with the adverts, which will appear from Wednesday in the Washington Timesand Washington Post.
Early drafts which told US "punters" that "having a flutter has become part of the British way of life" only conjured images of baseball players flapping their arms in the US.
PA