By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A prominent web shop operator said yesterday the parameters of what would constitute a national lottery need to be clearly defined as the term is 'very vague', arguing such schemes have not proven to be successful in the Caribbean.

Craig Flowers, the FML Group of Companies founder, told Tribune Business yesterday: "The term national lottery is very vague to us in the industry and that needs more description. If it is something that resembles a web shop operation then it will get a lot of resistance from existing operators. If it is something that is going to be done by way of a ball being thrown once or twice a week, I don't think there will be any resistance from the operators and they may even offer to assist in seeing that the government gets it off the ground."

Tourism Minister Dionisio D'Aguilar earlier this month told Tribune Business the creation of a Bahamian national lottery is "front and centre" in his mind, while warning web shops: "The status quo needs tweaking."

Mr Flowers told Tribune Business: "The first question in my mind is what is the objective? If the objective is to raise more funds then I don't think that a national lottery would raise the funds the government may be seeking. They have indicated that they are interested in privatising the lottery to be run by some other entity. A national lottery needs to be defined. What will it consist of?"

He continued: "For a layman like myself one would think that it would have the same opportunities that we in the web shop operations now have plus additional provisions will be in place for it to do things that web shops aren't able to do. It will cover more opportunities than the web shops and that will be seen as competing with existing operators. Is that the intent, I don't know."

Mr Flowers argued that national lotteries have not been proven to be successful in the Caribbean.

"It has been known for that type of operation, the calculation of the returns from such an operation is miniscule compared with the returns of a number game the web shops are doing. A national lottery is based on a large volume of people purchasing tickets. That pool is then taxed by way of paying its operational cost, paying its winning cost and then whatever is left from this amount there is a social or a government concern that will take away a tax from it. In most cases throughout the Caribbean in particular where populations are small, it doesn't work because of the fact that you cannot generate the pool size in order to make it attractive enough to pay these entities.

"That idea of a national lottery is certainly no threat to the web shop operations. We should endorse and assist government in establishing a national lottery if we can have some parameters as to what will define a national lottery and the way forward," said Mr Flowers.