While Benjamin Becker was winning his third round qualifying match yesterday at the Countrywide Classic in Los Angeles, I happened to sit next to his coach, J-L Fontanot. The last time I saw Becker he was losing the final at a challenger event in Santa Clarita, CA, an hour north of Los Angeles. Since then Becker has qualified into Halle and Wimbledon – where he made it to the second round – and lifted his ranking high enough to get into the main draw at Indianapolis.

Fontanot and Tarik Benhabiles, Roddick’s first coach, are partners in a group that is building a tennis facility in the Bahamas. They are working with Norman Canter who runs the tennis complex at Our Lucaya resort. They plan to assemble a group of professional tennis players and work out of the tennis center which is a short fifteen minute flight from Miami.

Four of the top ten players officially reside in the tax haven paradise of Monte Carlo.

Fontanot pointed out that the Bahamas is a tax free country. If you think this is unimportant, look at the listed residence of the top ten ATP players. Four of the top ten players officially reside in the tax haven paradise of Monte Carlo. Fontanot said that they were in discussion with some top twenty players but could not divulge their names because no contracts have been signed.

If the players do get addresses in the Bahamas, and that’s essentially what the Monte Carlo players have, an address (I once read that the residency requirement for tennis players consists solely of turning up at the Monte Carlo Open every April which is not hard since players are required to play in Master Series event), then those lucky players will have the right to gamble legally on the internet.

The US is already under fire for its participation in two wars – Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – and now they are attacking the global sports world too. US Federal agents arrested the principles in the British web site, betonsports.com. Even though online gambling is legal in England, the US says that they are breaking US law because they use a “wire communication facility” in the US – the internet – to take bets. Betonsports.com has closed down until the legal matter is settled.

… the US has no moral high ground when it comes to betting. Forty-two states have lotteries and Nevada has a casino on every street corner.

This is not the first time the US has indicted off-short internet gambling sites, you can see a large list of precedents here: http://www.bettingmarket.com/doj5001.htm. But it’s the first high profile case and would, I hope, lead to an outcry against the law. The issue is, of course, income tax. If I buy a product at an online company and that company is based in California, I pay California state tax. If I’m Barry Bonds and I get cash from appearing at a memorabilia shows, I’m supposed to report it as income, not give it to my girlfriend.

If I win money by gambling at betonsports.com, I am supposed to report that as income. If I don’t, that’s not the responsibility of betonsports.com and the US has no moral high ground when it comes to betting. Forty-two states have lotteries and Nevada has a casino on every street corner.

The US has trade agreements with other parts of the world for many products, let’s add internet gambling to the list. There’s no justification for putting people in jail for gambling.

Benjamin Becker won that qualifying match and made it into the main draw. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow. I’m goin’ home.