By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A leading web shop operator yesterday said the industry’s current financial numbers “don’t mean a hill of beans”, arguing that the sector’s performance would change markedly in a regulated environment,

Craig Flowers, chief executive and owner of the FML Group of Companies, said the Bahamian gaming industry must first be “put to the test” to see how it would react in a legalised environment, urging a similar approach to the Turks & Caicos.

He told Tribune Business yesterday: “All the numbers being thrown around don’t mean a hill of beans. You have to put the industry to the test in a regulated environment.

“In the Turks & Caicos Islands, the government there, with a similar transition to these games, gave the industry a one-year period to produce numbers; numbers that it monitored, and produced a study to determine how it [the sector] would react in a legislated environment.

“From that period they are now able to make educated decisions. I know it works in the Turks & Caicos. I don’t know how it would really work here. A transition period is almost mandatory to change from what we are doing now to a mandate given by government.”

Collective data produced by the web shop industry suggested that its gross annual take was between $370-$400 million.

Paul Major, the former Bahamasair general manager, who is a major advocate for the ‘Yes’ campaign to legalise web shop gaming, previously said: “A survey that was done last May, with some estimation of what the secondary players and operators are generating, [is that] the number is somewhere between $370 and $400 million.

“A lot of people say that’s the net profit; far from it. If it is $400 million, there is a lot of recycle playing.

“So the real numbers being played is probably somewhere around $100 to $120 million a year, and the net after pay-outs from winning and after operating expenses is probably somewhere around $60 to $70 million max.

“So that is what the Government will have, and really the question is in the regulation and how the Government will tax. Whether they will tax gross, gross margin after payouts or net profit. If it’s a net profit, which is really what it should be it, would be $20 million, which is 15-20 per cent of $60 to $70 million.”

Mr Flowers along with several other Bahamian web shop operators, led a massive march to Rawson Square yesterday, ahead of Monday’s vote on whether or not to regulate the Bahamian gaming industry.

“The argument that people have about the mechanics of this operation after the referendum is very loose, because there is no crystal ball we can look in to to determine what’s going to happen tomorrow in the industry,” Mr Flowers said.

“Put this very same industry with the very same numbers that we have today, and they will fall very short - or at least terribly skewed - in the presence of a legalised environment.

“To sit there and talk about what we are going to do with the money; that is a discussion to have with the people after the Government has been given a mandate to proceed, then we could have the Town Hall meetings and the dialogue with government officials.”

The FML chief said he employed some 400 persons between his web shop operations and other companies under the FML group.