You all keep writing articles like this is gonna make it easy for the PLP to buy the next election cus dem numba beys gon have to give a big time donation to de Politicrooks to keep their licenses......

My family ran casinos in the 40's in Cuba, I am a master player on French Roulette; a game of math, I love F-ing math. It is the only game in a casino that you have any real chance on winning my family taught me, otherwise, it's all luck. In the photo below I caught an online Casino in Curacao cheating because my mathematical method can only be beat by them cheating. The numbers that I chose were already removed by the computer because it said that I lost, but I had a chip on number five, that is one of the numbers in my pattern. Tell me if you see what's wrong with this picture below and I'll continue my story because only than I know you have some kind of intelligence.

http://tribune242.com/users/photos/2017…

Here's another photo to help you find the cheating.

http://tribune242.com/users/photos/2017…

Mr. Cartwright is 100% correct on the devasting impact web shops have had on the Long Island community. It is slowly destroying the economic and social fabric of this island. They are far more devasting than hurricane Joaquin ever was. When you have a single web shop company with multiple outlets generating several hundred dollars profit per month and exporting this off Island it is no wonder businesses are suffering and closing. There is no circulation of money, like a giant funnel sucking resources from the most vulnerable and needy to the rich and greedy.

On the social side you have spouses with gambling addictions, gambling away grocery money, money to pay electrical bills etc, and it is easy to see the impact this has on family life, an increase in domestic violence and abuse, children suffer etc. It has lead too to an increased demand on social services as monies that should have been used for basic necessities are lost.

It appears however, that these web shops are an unavoidable evil as many Bahamians especially the uneducated and poor are hopelessly drawn to the lie of quick easy money. This is why these web shops should be taxed to within an inch of their life, certainly much more than they are now, so that these resources can be used to fund the increased demand on social services. Ideally, they should be nationalized so that the state derives the maximum benefit, as it is the state that is now paying for all of the social ills these webshops invariably cause.

DonAnthony, excellent analysis of the devastating impact of gambling on Long Island.

The FNM (or DNA or whom ever wins the next election) will have a virtually impossible task of rebuilding the economy with over 400 webshops and growing. A very significant portion of the countries GDP is being siphoned of by this non productive and highly addictive activity especially impacting those that can lease afford it.
The truth be told that its impact, I believe, but I have no facts to prove it, that it has a more negative impact than corruption under the PLP. We simply need to know the total size of the gross net winnings of all the webshops and divide that number by the GDP (approx $9 billion).

Example if the net winnings is $400 million, then its about 5% drain on GDP. No amount of foreign investment (Baha Mar, tourism, agriculture, fishing or second home market) can offset that. Not to mention the drain on social services, education and the lives destroyed for generations to come.

My advice to all Bahamians is to discourage your loved ones from using webshops.

Just one correction ......... webshops are devastating ALL communities in The Bahamas ....... ghetto, suburb and out island....... the next government MUST repeal these webshop licenses and establish a national lottery so that the country as a whole can benefit from the gambling income ...... like VAT

Is this not the same Rupert Roberts who was trying to buy a webshop last year and already had installed fully functional webshop kiosks in his Super Value stores? Is he suggesting that it is ok for him to sell numbers but not other Bahamians? Very hypocritical!
Maybe he should try to stop killing his customers with his overpriced groceries. People are buying plane tickets to Miami, purchasing their groceries in bulk, paying freight and customs duties and still saving 25% compared to Robert's prices.

Why not a National Lottery and put the web shops out of business??

I would not want this band of thieves to have a national lottery all the big jackpots will be rigged and stolen and all the US cash plundered

Comrades! Super Values Rupert, forget tell you that this is not all poor numbers players and the nation will get to know lots more about the middle class who make up 15% (50%) of the 30%, whom the numbers tooks away they families groceries moneys.
Maybe the MP for Long Island will step forward to tell Long Islanders - what has been her position all along on the numbers industry explosion in her constituencies?
Comrades the numbers is no damn National Lottery and its long been a questionable gambling industry in we Bahamaland - illegal or legal matters not a good damn. A breeding ground to tempt those open political influences.

Maybe gamble for groceries.

Food for grocery stores shouldn't be taxed or have duty of grocery stores stay below a profit margin. Concessions for cheap grocery stores with good grocery.

It's really okay for this man to accept gaming when he's benefiting from it but because he's not some how webshop magically became a national problem...If Mr. Roberts would do a proper investigation he would see that customs and all shipping companies were very profitable, the people aren't just fed up with the Government but also with the highly prices of good especially in the food store. Why spend 1000 dollars to just full up half a cupboard and refrigerator when I can go foreign spend 1000 and have a kitchen and basement full of groceries?

i dont support gambling, but reality is we live in what is generally regarded as a free society currently, where citizens and residents are free to make any lawful decision they wish. are we proposing some fascist, dictatorship or strong-man government who would be making all our decisions for us?

The same people who are gambling now are the same ones who were gambling when it was illegal. Perhaps it is a good thing that people are buying less food. Because there are to many overweight people in the Bahamas. which contributes to diabeties and high blood. Eat less people** ** **Strong**

Birdie before you could buy your little number but you could not sit like zombies in front of a computer spinning and go through hundreds and thousands in a day ,and its mostly women spinning

Birdie, like the true PLP you have the great ability to obfuscate. While it is true that the same people are gambling who gambled when it was illegal, an entire new set of gamblers have come on stream and the number of outlets have proliferated.

While Bahamians are overweight it is shameful that children are going to school hungry and can't learn because their parents have gambled away grocery money.

If this is good then shame on you.

Comrades! I am not that informed whether it was just rumored about Rupert's involvement with numbers sellers but if accurate I think he at minimum needs explain his actions to his many thousands grocery stores customers who voted in the referendum against the legalization the numbers rackets.
Just about every household cleaning product Super Value Stores sell off their stores shelves are marked with warning labels of their harmful contents.... I wonder if Rupert was planning to list all the dangerous to your health that numbers buying customers can suffer. from wagering away their paycheques from playing and buying them numbers?

Tal, like Birdie you also have the unique ability to obfuscate a critical issue by attacking the messenger. Yes, Rupert wanted to have gambling in his stores but if he also says its taking away food sales then that too is also true.

The real issue is that gambling is sucking funds out of the productive economy and it is having a devastating impact on society, especially in Long Island.

Armchair critics like us are also to blame as we have correctly identified the problem but will not sacrifice anything to fix it. Perhaps this is your real point.

Rupert Roberts is a hypocrite plain and simple who is saying that it is ok for him and his type to sell numbers but not other Bahamian who do not look like him. Who anointed him and his peers with such privilege. Organised gambling has been going on in this country for over half a century. Therefore, even though gambling is a convenient culprit, in my view such an assessment is not only naive it shows a lack of understanding of some basic current trends. The urge or need that Bahamians have to gamble is in my view largely driven by the stranglehold that the white merchant class has had on the sell side of our economy for all that time. Up to this point the merchant class have been able to autocratically make and set prices in most sectors in the domestic economy, including the retail, grocery and banking and credit sectors. I have included banking and credit because this behavior also applies to the foreign commercial banks, only much worse. The average Bahamian consumer, the buy side, up to this point had no choice but to be price takers and take whatever price the merchant class and foreign banks set. This has led to a sense of economic dis-empowerment. Hypocrite Rupert Roberts is a VIP of that old school merchant class. Current trends show that the game is now changing and even average Bahamians are no longer price takers, except in banking and credit. The average Bahamian are now engaging in disintermediation whereby they are now purchasing their retail goods, groceries and other household items directly from the same purchasers that Rupert Roberts is purchasing from. This dynamic is evident by the proliferation of companies offering courier services to facilitate this new demand for foreign goods. This trend has had and will continue to have a devastating effect on Roberts and friends and the larger economy to a certain extent. A full education and more in-depth assessment and analysis on this is beyond the scope of this little blog but the long and short is that the damage that has been inflicted on our economy by the merchant class and the foreign commercial banks make the webshops look like choir boys by comparison. When you talk about economic structural constraints you need to start there.

How about we work on all of the above. Your argument about structural pricing issues in the economy does not negate the need for controlling , taxing, and regulating the gaming industry. We can do both.

Is that not what the Gaming Act & Regulations, 2014 did?

In no way am I saying that there are no negative externalities associated with gambling as that would also be naive. Our approach should include a public discourse about those negative externalities but it should most importantly also address the fact that our sovereign business model based on FDI is inconsistent with future global market trends and simply just does not have the horsepower to drive the GDP growth, employment, consumer and business confidence and sectorial linkages necessary to rescue us from our current condition.

While john doe makes some good points above, one other reasons for sales to be down is that people do not buy as much.

Prices also rise because of the APD company guaranteed return rate of 10%, and people forget that.

Couriers used to be expensive a few years ago, but now their prices are very, very competitive.

I buy a 90oz bottle of dishwashing liquid which before VAT implementation cost 6.99. Now the price is 9.66 VAT included. It is a price increase of 38 percent, much more than the 'one time' price increase of 7.5pc promised by john Rolle.

I agree and there are many other substitute choices consumers are now making in the face of the perpetual raising prices driven by the supply side. In fact what is happening now is indeed a more advanced model of the entire dynamic quantity supply/quantity demand model where Roberts and friends are finding out that quantity demanded is not as inelastic as it once was because average Bahamians have more options (competition) and are now choosing substitutes or like you say just generally buying less of that particular good and that ain't even no astute analysis that is merely econ 101. So instead of Roberts calling the Bahamian consumer ignorant for not buying is high priced groceries he should try changing his price gouging ways.

I agree with the disintermediation of parties like the merchant class. However the impediment to total disintermediation, is the non-convertible currency restrictions and the dis-empowerment of folks who do not possess a credit card or debit card that is enabled to deal with a hard currency.

The middle class is shrinking. Domestic debt is still at an all time high, and for a large part, the use of other parties other than the merchant class requires the use of a debt instrument (credit card).

I have serious concerns about the long-term economic viability of folks who are now deemed middle class, but will not be with further decline of the Bahamian economy. This will put them further into the thrall of closed club of the merchant class.

Agree fully and as I stated above I am not so sure total disintermediation should even be a national economic goal because it creates other problems/trade-offs. And that is the rub because as you begin to have thoughtful discussions about these complex economic issues you immediately realize that there is rarely an absolutely right or wrong solution but that every policy option has trade-offs with both positive and negative elements. What is important is to have a clear understanding of the problem, a clear, workable and transparent solution and a clear understanding of the nature of the trade-offs and costs involved and which elements of society will be most likely to bear those costs. As a society we are far from this model. Halkitis is a CFA just like me but to say that his lack of clarity on these issues has been disappointing would be an understatement. For that and other reasons, like you I am also pessimistic about our future.

Excellent points John.

John, your argument as to why Ruperts sales are down beyond the simple "webshop" scape goat are excellent.

The stranglehold that Bay St merchants have on the economy will further be loosened once Amazon starts to operate in the Bahamas.

Right now the Bahamian market is too small for Amazon, the lack of house/street numbers makes it difficult to locate anyone and the massively complex custom bureaucracy slows down shipments so much that any perishables will surely perish via direct shipments from the US. Also the cost of buying in bulk currently is unaffordable to most.

I am sure these barriers will be broken down in the next couple of years.

Perhaps the webshops will innovate and proved an Amazon service as they have already created a parallel banking system disintermediating the Canadian banks.

I believe in constructive dialogue because we will never be able to solve any complex economic issue/problem without being able to differentiate causative from correlative factors. I have merely described a trend, and though this trend maybe necessary it is also having some very serious negative effects on our economy. It is just not sustainable for us to continue to have the balance of trade current account deficits that we have which is driven mainly by the new imports trends described above but also and very importantly by the unilateral payment transfers made by Haitians, Jamaicans, Chinese and other working foreigners to their home countries. Unless abated, mitigated or properly directed, increasingly this will eventually increase and accelerate our currency devaluation risk curve. As I noted above it is an intricate, complex and multi-faceted issue.

Agree, a national dialogue about the impact and practices of these foreign commercial banks is also very necessary. But we leave that for another day.

Make the web shops illegal,remove them from the islands and establish a National Lottery which is TRANSPARENT and from which money cannot be siphoned off. Cut down the civil service and government appointed jobs, remove the ridiculous pensions, take away the cars that they abuse for private use, make them pay for their own gasoline - just let's get sensible and serious about this!

Comrades! The public's discussion on firing all the Numbers Man's, is but idle talk as long as the political status quo on today's pre-2017 General Election scene remain in place it should remain a worry to all of us who are not opposed to a government operated National Lottery whereby the motive is clear and transparent that the moneys from lotteries are to be invested chiefly back into funding nation Health Programs as well as funding the social, educational and sporting projects within our many presently underfunded communities.
Nome on today's political scene are seen as grinders to do away with the Numbers... they eco the same responses across party lines colours... and seldom unless pressured just don't want talk much about numbers... and I'll leave it up each you to form your own conclusions why it is what it is... and that should be an easy assignment for even those with but a Grade two level of education.

Comrade Zakary, the the Finlayson family's City Meat Markets failed after discovering the groceries business is not an easy business turn profits. You might want study the business genealogy of the original Super Value and Portion Control owned by Juilian and Tyrone Darville. In fact we can go back to Rupert Roberts earlier days working for Sir Stafford's Winn Dixi/City Meat Markets Food Stores.

The Finlayson family has failed at every business it entered!

Zakary you absolutely correct about the lack of innovation and ingenuity of the merchant class and Bahamians in general. What is interesting is that as much as we may malign these little black numbers boys, what is undeniable is that their innovative thinking and their technological ingenuity has produced locally intricate systems that are more scalable, efficient and cost effective than even the systems of our dinosaur predatory commercial foreign banks who are more interested in repatriating their profits earned off the backs of Bahamians back to their Canadian citizens as fast as possible.

Comrade JohnDoe, is tis you who is maligning innovative thinking and technological ingenuity in the real world with that of the so-called little black numbers boys model of innovative thinking and their technological ingenuity in running the numbers....Of course you're just trying be funny... right?
Obviously, you like the PLP cabinet are totally clueless about the simplicity of their numbers operations. Comrade, believe too much what you read in the newspapers.

It is you that need an education comrade! I do not engage in idle talk for the sake of blogs. I know of what I speak.

Comrade, even if you're intention is not to engage in numbers operations gossip that you've read in the Tribune, before you knows it ya mouth has run away blogging out what numbers technological ingenuity you've been fed by the media. Take it from The Comrade, don't you be repeating it....okay!

It was 2007 -- Almost 10 years ago. I was tired of taking breakfast at Sailor's Choice on East Bay Street at the marina where the jetski boyz launched. Ole Gorman and his cronies were occupying the place, pontificating loudly, eating boil fish and grits. I took the water taxi across to Hurricane Hole Marina, and had a wonderful breakfast at the News Cafe opposite. There used to be a Solomon's there and the cafe was the last operating business before Sol turned it into a parking lot. The breakfasts were fabulous.

I then walked across the street back to Hurricane Hole to wait for the water taxi. A woman shows up in an official shirt with "flowers" embroidered on it. She has a hand-held mobile device with an antenna and printer. She had this little stall at Hurricane Hole under the walkway. All of a sudden, a group of construction yardies show up, handing her money. The proffered various amount ranging from a quarter to several dollars. When I heard one say "Box dem", I knew that it was the numbers game. Everyone who gave the gal money got their chit -- printed on her small handheld mobile device.

The sophistication, ingenuity and level of investment in advanced mobile technology that worked across the harbour, when you couldn't get get a solid internet connection along the seven hotspots on Bay Street, was amazing. It blew me away.

The sophistication of the mobile devices at this point of time was one thing, but what really got me, was the ability to sell and payout fractional amounts on a bet of a series of numbers. It was a hell of a technological feat to write the software to do fractional bets from a mobile device, and yet it was done.

Later I learned that the technological ingenuity was provided by the udder-side-of-da-blanket son of the then Attorney General who sweethearted the numbers king years ago and got big-up in the deal. Y'all know who I'm talking about.

So when someone says that the numbers game is simple, the concept is. However the technical architecture, scalability and the complex platform and mobile devices were revolutionary for the time, and enabled them to rake in millions with just a bit of technology innovation. If only the damn government would do the same thing we would be going places, but dems PLP is all monkeys who just know how to pocket coins that don't belong to dem.