Made millionaires out of 6 people when the whole country could of benefit....Perry has no vision....national lottery I say

Webshops' Quantity ($150 per wk) vs Atlantis' Quality ($300+ per wk) ............... it doesn't make any sense ........... BTW: how can the PLP justify enriching a criminal oligarchy vs creating an all inclusive national lottery???????? ........ Ans. just like the Referendum's hidden agenda

Agreed and at great risk to our entire financial system through the Bank of the Bahamas. This is because the Bank of the Bahamas is the only financial entity which is accepting gambling deposits from the semi-licensed web shops.

The government doesn’t fully appreciate the systemic importance of the Bank of the Bahamas and that if something had to happen to the Bank of the Bahamas’ correspondent relationship due to web shops it would impact the entire Bahamian banking system due to the interrelationships between the institutions, the Central Bank and the governments own finances. The Bank of the Bahamas US correspondent will continue to provide correspondent banking until it suddenly stops without notice and without providing a reason. Banks are under no obligation to bank with someone they don’t want to bank with. Relationships are under continuous evaluation.

The government also does not appreciate that if the Bank of the Bahamas trades with all other local banks and other financial institutions such as insurance companies and credit unions then the proceeds of web shop gambling is indirectly transmitted through the financial system and into the economy and indirectly through their counter-parties correspondent network in New York. Watch this space for de-risking 2.0.

Are our regulators really so simplistic and naïve that they believe that unacceptable financial transactions in one financial institutions can be ring fenced just by using another bank?

Lord have mercy.

...the difference is that the casinos derive their revenue from foreigners and not the food off the table from locals.

Absolutely! These idiots have no grasp of even first grade economics.

The same people who are gambling now are the same people who were gambling when gambling was illegal. It is fun for them. people have the right to spend their money any way they wish Some buy false hair, paint their nails or buy expensive bags. It is their God given choice. No one has to buy Numbers.

The fact is that unless the economy grows as well, we shops can see an actual decline in the number of employees. There will come a time the industry reaches a saturation point where additional web shops will generate no increase in business. The new stores will only draw from existing stores and increase overhead. This will happen sooner that later if the government does nothing to stimulate this stagnant economy. Then too as the 'web shop' product matures it will draw less consumers and operators will have to spend more money promoting and rebranding their products. Those who strategically place their stores and resist the opportunity to over expand will benefit greatest. It is an illusion to think that web shops can continue to expand while the rest of the economy shrinks and is drying up

The webshops are living on borrowed time. All of the small banks are quickly losing correspondent banking privileges, and the Bank of The Bahamas is high on the list of being de-risked due to accepting web shop money. When that happens, it will be nothing more than a crippled entity dealing only in Bahamian dollars with no external US dollar money transfers, credit card payments or any other currency transactions requiring hard currencies such as the American dollar, the British pound, the Canadian dollar and the Euro.

Why do you think our friend Ryan bolted from Deltec? He can see the writing on the wall.

What good will a dumptruck full of Bahamian dollars be to the webshop owners who cannot even buy US dollars for new machines when their only bank loses its ability to transact American dollars?

With KYC/AML being required for sources of money, those individuals will have their ability to transact in American dollars severely curtailed at the major banks as well. This is going to be interesting.

The next step, will not only be the banks, but the money transfer houses. Fidelity already had its 26 money transfer locations shuttered when Western Union de-risked them and ended the correspondent relationship. There will be more to come.

The real embarrassing optics will be when the ex-Governor of the Central Bank, chairman of a brewery AND the chairman of a webshop, will be considered an AML risk because of the position that he holds at a webshop. Hilarious.

here we go again the prophets of gloom and doom. the chicken- licken syndrome is alive and well**Strong**