As the internet betting world was thrown into disarray last week, hopes that the US will be forced to permit its citizens to engage in online gambling are being pinned on a Cork-based lawyer.

Mark Mendel, who lives in Crosshaven, Co Cork, is a partner with Texas law firm Mendel Blumenfeld.

Since 2003 he has been the unlikely weapon of the government of Antigua and Barbuda in the tiny Caribbean state's efforts to force the US government to comply with a World Trade Organisation ruling that it must lift restrictions on online gambling.

If Mendel succeeds, the floodgates of internet gaming . . . which one US senator has emotionally labelled as "perniciously addictive as crack cocaine" . . . could reopen.

Mendel, whose mother's family hails from Cavan, is confident he can reverse the US clampdown that last week saw the chief executive of BetonSports arrested in Dallas on charges of racketeering and fraud. More than half the company's customers are based in the US.

Last week a major gambling conference due to take place in Las Vegas was cancelled for fear that futher arrests would follow. Less than two weeks ago the US House of Representatives approved legislation that would prevent the use of credit cards and fund transfers for "unlawful internet gambling", and block financial transactions associated with internet betting.

The chairman of the financial institutions and consumer credit subcommittee, Spencer Bachus, said that online gambling is a "mushrooming epidemic" responsible for suicides, crime and financial and family tragedies.

He offered no empirical evidence for his claim.

Such comments are like a red rag to Mendel. "They are going right in the face of the WTO ruling, " said Mendel, speaking from Cork last week.

He said the US had already lost an appeal on the ruling, which found that its restrictions on online gambling violated trade rules.

Antigua and Barbuda took the case because the nation had established a significant back-office support business to support online gaming. The island state claims to have lost $24bn in revenue in the past six years, since the US began reeling in the internet betting sector.

"The US simply turned around and told the WTO that it was compliant with the ruling, " said Mendel, who insisted that it clearly is not. "It was an affront to us and the WTO.

We instituted a procedure where the WTO will review the status of the US' compliance to determine whether they actually are compliant.

"Assuming a level playing field, I don't see how we're going to lose."