I am a former developer of one of these web shops. I sold it a few years ago. I can tell you these facts.
Big web shop owners wanted nothing to do with legalization from day one because it would mean the government would force them to buy licenses and the little ones like I was would just have continued to operate behind the screens without paying a penny.
Even if the government manages to "tax" them they (as would have) will just create a shadow double accounting system. Everything is on servers way out of the reach of Bahamian government agencies so they can't audit the programs running on them. One real and only visible to me and one for the government to see. I would have been at a slight loss or break even every month.
I would not have bothered to buy licenses, I am convinced they will not police and enforce this past like 3 months from the day of inception. We all know the gov is like a child. They get a new toy and play with it every day for a week, after that the toy goes to the bottom of the drawer. The only way the police would bother with the unregistered shops is if the big boys paid the officers incentives that will mean they will offer less payouts to the players to cover the overhead. As an unregistered webshop I would be stealing their business being able to offer higher prizes.
If the big boys are forced to register and pay license fees unregistered shops will be
The only thing limiting newcomers is the problem obtaining safe locations for their terminals.
We feared one thing but only a little as I knew the web shop bosses with real money (one shop owner who also meddles in human smuggling collects $150,000 after winnings paid out per day!!! from Exhuma alone brought in on the ferry in briefcases) were paying off politicians not to make the industry legal.
That thing was government run lottery. I would have been able to develop a secure system for less than a hundred grand. It would use numbers drawn in any US city, would therefore be safe from the given Bahamian tampering with winning numbers. Servers would cost about $1,000/month in a very secure US hosting location connected through VPN only to every terminal on the island. All access to the server for administration would also be only through private IP through VPN tunnels and intrusion detecting firewalls. Not even visible on the internet. The most expensive thing would be special paper for the tickets. Hardware costs per location sub $500. The source code would be provided to government to run independent security audits to ensure no back doors exist (this would also be the other most expensive item) then Zend Guard encrypted. Forget the bullshit about a system costing millions of dollars.
Of course that would put private web shops out of business overnight. No need for much enforcement of the existing laws which make them illegal as they would simply unable to compete.

Bullshit. The method used was to physically tap into the network layer of communication with plugs and hardware at BTC not listening in wirelessly. Tommy do you suggest the NSA broke into BTC and installed invisible gadgets that nobody took notice of?

Saved the tax payers some money.

As I said when this story broke both parties are involved and there is no way they could have pulled it off without active BTC cooperation no matter what they say. They lie because they think there is no evidence and they will not be caught. What they are ignorant about is that at this age it is nearly impossible to completely purge electronic evidence. Given an independent private digital forensic company the task of investigating this they would dig up dirt 100%. Of course it is in both parties' interest to bury this as soon and as deep as possible and so nothing will come off it.

Collect the unpaid property taxes instead of introducing any new ones. Problem solved.

Lloyd how much bribe were you promised if this catastrophe called dredging is completed?

"The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) has since denied having any knowledge of phone tapping going on in the Bahamas. "

Impossible. Without BTC cooperation they would not have been able to do it. The documents clearly explain that the government gave DEA (through instructing BTC) access to the network layer of cell phone communications.

Homosexuality is wrong and disgusting. Glad to see someone standing up to the onslaught of gay agenda in the world.

I would love to see life hard labor sentences instead of hanging. Chain gangs for non violent criminals to clean the beaches, the streets and work at the city dump.

Is it not sad that the English has more care for the Bahamas than the corrupt asshole politicians do? Now although I am happy to hear this imagine how much damage that monster caused in a week of none stop mayhem.