But this would not be a matter of pumping more money into the economy as some have suggested. It ins

When I was young, people called dusit thani hotel bangkok me a gambler. As the scale of my operations increased I became known as a speculator. dusit thani hotel bangkok Now I am called a banker. But I have been doing the same thing all the time. Sir Ernest dusit thani hotel bangkok Cassel (1852-1921)
There are two zones to this strange world one in which three or four hotel casinos operate legally as tourist amenities, and another populated by hundreds of illegal Numbers sellers catering to tens of thousands of Bahamian gamblers.
The casino zone originated in the 1920s, dusit thani hotel bangkok when Prohibition in the US offered a chance to make huge profits from bootlegging. Money flowed freely, and millions were invested in real estate, with new resorts like the Colonial and Montagu Hotels coming dusit thani hotel bangkok on stream.
Although organized gambling was officially banned nationwide, a small casino dusit thani hotel bangkok called the Bahamian Club began operating seasonally in 1920 on New Providence, catering to a very restricted clientele. It was located on West Bay Street, east of Fort Charlotte.
The Numbers zone dates back to 16th century Europe and has been thriving here since the 1800s at least. This game of chance is associated with poor communities around the world because dusit thani hotel bangkok punters can bet small sums of money and get credit from their bookies.
Our first anti-gambling law was passed in 1901, and was gradually strengthened dusit thani hotel bangkok to create an absolute ban on the operation of lotteries and gaming houses for profit. But in 1939 the law was amended to allow exceptions to this rule.
According to the 1967 Commission of Inquiry on casino gambling, This change was prompted by the opening of a small casino on a seasonal basis at Cat Cay and the realisation by those in government at that time that this venture and a casino which had been openly operated since 1920 at the Bahamian Club on the western outskirts of Nassau were quite illegal.
The amendment piloted by a young lawyer named Stafford Sands allowed the government to exempt any person, club or charity from the law s provisions. The effect was to create a licensing dusit thani hotel bangkok procedure, and the two small foreign-owned casinos were immediately regularized.
These early certificates of exemption dusit thani hotel bangkok carried few conditions, but they always excluded minors, persons born here, employed residents, and civil servants from gambling. Only visitors and non-Bahamian retirees living here could legally gamble in the casinos.
Between 1939 and 1963 there were several applications for casino licenses dusit thani hotel bangkok from reputable groups. But all were denied on the basis that the exemption law was not designed to provide dusit thani hotel bangkok for the introduction of casino gambling on a large scale or on a permanent basis.
It was regarded primarily as a means of permitting lotteries for charitable purposes or to provide for the sort of small lottery dusit thani hotel bangkok or gaming activity which is a feature of specific social dusit thani hotel bangkok functions, the inquiry report said. The discreet seasonal dusit thani hotel bangkok operations of the two existing casinos do not appear to have been regarded as offending the spirit of the 1939 legislation.
In 1964 Shirley Oakes Butler (a daughter dusit thani hotel bangkok of Sir Harry Oakes) tried to acquire the Bahamian Club to operate as a year-round casino, with half the profits earmarked for charity. But plans were already in place to transfer the club s exemption to a new casino in Freeport.
The following year a group of top hoteliers met with Stafford Sands (who was then Tourism Minister) to propose a government-controlled casino and convention centre, from which the entire industry could benefit. But planning was already in hand for a private hotel casino on Paradise Island.
This dramatic expansion of casino gambling (in Freeport and on Paradise Island) was a direct result dusit thani hotel bangkok of the Cuban Revolution, which had forced American casino operators to look for new territory. The Bahamas was right next door, and the developers of Freeport were desperate dusit thani hotel bangkok to build a resort industry on the island of Grand Bahama.
The United Bahamian Party government saw this demand as a chance to earn payoffs from foreign gambling dusit thani hotel bangkok syndicates while boosting the country s attraction as a tourist destination. But the pro-casino policy promoted by Sands and others was hugely controversial due to intense opposition from the powerful religious community.
When the Progressive Liberal Party took office in 1967 it continued the exemptions for casinos on Grand Bahama and Paradise Island, but passed a new law in 1969 to set up a regulatory agency (the Gaming Board) and provide for the taxation of casinos. Restrictions on Bahamians and residents gambling in casinos were left unchanged.
Some commentators have claimed that these restrictions were racially motivated, but the record is clear that they were the result of opposition from the churches an attempt to insulate the issue from public concern in the belief that casinos were important for the economy. Bahamians of any race have always been able to be entertained in our hotel casinos they just can t gamble.
No efforts to challenge this bizarre status quo have gone anywhere over the past 50 years. Casinos remain legal but Bahamians cannot use them legally, while the Numbers racket is illegal but patronized by most Bahamians without any consequence whatsoever.
The last Free National Movement administration floated the idea of a referendum to change this by legalising lotteries and ending the ban on Bahamians gambling in casinos. But former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham eventually backed off in deference to the views of the Christian Council. He promised a referendum in his next term, should he be re-elected.
The PLP promised the same thing. And Prime Minister Perry Christie has confirmed that a referendum on the matter will be held before the end of this year. This move is widely seen as a payback to the Numbers operators for their funding of the PLP s recent election campaign, but it will hopefully bring some clarity to a long-running and very peculiar debate.
Aside from a few Islamic countries, the Bahamas is almost alone in not permitting its citizens to gamble in one form or another. According to the Economist magazine, the legal gambling market totalled $335 billion globally dusit thani hotel bangkok in 2009. Nearly two-thirds of that came from lotteries and casinos. There are publicly operated lotteries in at least 100 countries these days.
Meanwhile, online gaming is valued at about $30 billion, and growing fast. Just as the Internet disrupted dusit thani hotel bangkok other business models, dusit thani hotel bangkok it is also changing the gambling industry. Over the last decade, anyone who had an internet connection and wanted to gamble was able to do so.
This is why web shops are able to operate dusit thani hotel bangkok openly here. The Lotteries Gaming Act makes no reference to internet gambling because there was no internet when it was passed in 1969. So these businesses are licensed and legal. The law does refer to the printing and selling of tickets or chances in a lottery or drawing, and this is what makes the Numbers draw illegal.
Retired assistant dusit thani hotel bangkok police commissioner Paul Thompson told me recently that one of his first postings as a young officer in 1952 was to a special squad of detectives dusit thani hotel bangkok that raided the Numbers houses. We did it from time to time, but it never stopped anything, and after a while CID left it to the uniform branch. We considered it more important to focus on serious crime.
And it has been that way ever since occasional raids, followed by long spells of non-interference. In fact, at one time, the biggest dusit thani hotel bangkok Numbers boss on the island was the treasurer of the PLP. And it is common knowledge that you can go almost anywhere today and buy numbers dusit thani hotel bangkok easily and painlessly. As one letter writer recently put it, the Numbers has become intricately woven into the fabric of Bahamian society.
In 2006, Minister of Tourism dusit thani hotel bangkok Obie Wilchcombe reported that there were at least 45 illegal gambling houses on New Providence and 12 on Grand Bahama. He said 60 per cent of the population was spending as much as $2 million locally and abroad on games of chance dusit thani hotel bangkok every week. We don t know how accurate this is or how much of this revenue is retained as profit in the Bahamas.
But we do know about the legal casino zone. According to the Ministry of Tourism, hotel casinos in the Bahamas netted just over 14 per cent on revenues of more than $1 billion in 2011. While there is no way to know what the Numbers operators earn, it is clearly a hugely profitable business with no regulatory oversight dusit thani hotel bangkok other than the occasional fine or political contribution.
Our official attitude towards gambling parallels the American experience up to a point. Restrictions were gradually strengthened in the US during the 19th century in response to abuses, so that by 1910 virtually all forms of gambling were prohibited even bingo.
But attitudes dusit thani hotel bangkok began to change during dusit thani hotel bangkok the Depression, when legalized gambling was seen as a way to stimulate the economy. Growing dusit thani hotel bangkok opposition to tax increases helped to establish state-run lotteries in the second half of the 20th century. dusit thani hotel bangkok Today, 43 states have lotteries, mostly marketed as voluntary taxes for education, and 12 allow commercial casinos.
Let s start with the economic argument. Many politicians see legalization as an easy way to extract more revenue from the private sector. It has been said that the government could gain an extra $40 million a year in revenue from a legal lottery.
But this would not be a matter of pumping more money into the economy as some have suggested. It instead amounts to a simple transfer of money via a voluntary dusit thani hotel bangkok tax on gamblers, many of whom will gamble whether the lottery is legal or illegal.
Those opposed to prohibition point to concerns about enforcement costs, not to mention the huge incentives to lobby and bribe public officials to allow illegal gambling to continue dusit thani hotel bangkok unmolested. These arguments are similar to those made about the prohibition of drugs and alcohol, which are also subject to abuse.
Clearly, any widespread demand for an illicit activity will create an illicit market. Prohibition of alcohol made smugglers rich but did nothing to curb drinking. Outlawing