These web shops may very well be outside the regulatory powers of the gaming board, but their actions i.e. gambling, are covered under the constitution of the Bahamas. According to the constitution, those actions are illegal. This issue has become nothing more than poppycock!! SMT.

They have yet to explain HOW Technology has put them outside the law. If you read the Lotteries and Gaming Act of 1969 it clearly defines what the words in the ACT mean and then states under what conditions they are illegal.

The Act says that "Machines" includes ANY Apparatus.

“lottery” includes any sweepstake and any game, method or device whereby money or money’s worth is distributed or allotted in any manner depending upon or to be determined by chance or lot, held, drawn, exercised or managed whether in The Bahamas or elsewhere or upon the basis of the outcome of a future contingent event whether occurring in The Bahamas or elsewhere and also includes the game called or known as “numbers”;

According to the Act Citizens of The Bahamas are not allowed to engage in lotteries or gambling. The Act is available online - don't let people fool you about what it says!

This is easy to circumnavigate. It's as simple as moving their domain to a host outside of the Bahamas. Then place all gaming activities on said websites. With our current laws there is nothing we can do I don't think. i.e. See: http://www.pcworld.com/article/249132/t…

In my view - even though I have never gambled in my life - Numbers and Asue are not activities which are meant to be commercialized. They are a cultural practice and are part of that anthropological unsystematic systemisation that is uniquely Bahamian, and is an expression of the failure of our governments to lift their people out of a life of 'quiet desperation'.

In the same manner that in developed countries, ordinary people have chequing accounts and over-drafts as a means of managing and off-setting shortfalls in financial resources, prudence and discipline aided by social trust drives and sustains Asue, and Occultism, irrational optimism and quiet desperation drives and sustains Numbers.

Both of these practices emerged because - as I explained 7-years ago in a lecture at the Rotary Club meeting at East Villa in Nassau - economic activity in the Bahamas has been largely exhibited and exercised in black and gray markets for nearly 300-years. The reason, again, is that - unlike, let us say, Singapore - our governments have failed to educate our people for development, and have failed to apply our resources to lift our people up beyond these practices into a system of life that is suitable, predictable or sustainable, given the resources which have been available to us since we have had majority rule.

Numbers and Asue are proofs of that failure.

As such, I find the discussion concerning Numbers in particular or Gambling general to be a meta-discussion sitting high above the real world truth of our situation; such that it fails to examine or explain what lies behind the popularity of these asymmetrical economic practices; as is typical with us.

Professor Gilbert NMO Morris

Professor Morris, this is a very interesting observation and one with which I fully concur. A direct corollary of this potential commercialization is a regressive taxation regime on the many to redistribute wealth to the few. What appears to be economic activity and benefits from gaming are merely the by-products of having wealth concentrated in the hands of a few individuals. These activities detract from a sustainable economic development plan and offer little to no inter-industry linkages or sustainable economic growth. As a matter of fact, if the estimated $400 million dollars per annum that is spent gambling were to be re-directed to savings by Bahamians, or even half that amount, in ten years the Bahamas would be a formidable economic force in this region. This increased savings would allow broader and deeper investments by Bahamian businesses in our economy. It would jump-start, broaden and deepen our capital markets thereby facilitating wider share ownership. It would also unleash our entrepreneurial spirits, stimulate small business growth and spur sustainable job creation that can keep pace with students entering the work force every year. Yet, instead of attempting to educate us about our potential, our politicians are too busy trying to enrich themselves and their friends, while they try to make us believe that it’s the bogeyman that is keeping us from our true potential.

This web shops are just not under the ruling of gaming board. SO what do they have to do? It is comparable against the so called crime in using [remanufactured ink cartridges][1]

[1]: http://www.inkjetsuperstore.com/