Did you not hear the briefs. Did you not read how Mssrs. Monroe and Sears will be arguing. Did you not hear the minister of state in the attorney general office say in parliament that the existing gaming act does not cover what happens in the web shop. And you are correct, and that is one of the many reasons why we are having constitutional reform. Stop reading Wikipedia.

Read my post again and argue the points, Concerned. Second, my statement was addressed to the writer of this piece, not king philosopher. Third, you don't know me. It's pretty childish, your ad hominem. Do yourself a favor, read, think and then write.

That's just weak and really deserves no more than stating the obvious--organs!? Weak

This is awful. A poorly written piece demonstrating a sophomoric understanding of the Law and, more importantly, the psyche of the Bahamian people.

The injunction does allow for the status quo to be maintain... Just a tiny point: exactly what do you think is the status quo of web shops? Said another way: they ARE allowed to continue business as usual until the matter is decided on by the Courts.

Further Ms Turner, it is YET to be determined that the activities done at or as a result of the web shops, are in fact covered by the Gaming Act.

Also, what will be argued in addition to that is, did the govt through its repeated issuing of licenses to web shops implied legitimacy to the web shops operations.

And that is just the beginning. Next up, the constitutionality of Bahamians not being allowed to gamble etc. etc.

What a very clever question--to regulate and tax. NOT legalize. Ensuring the end result would be much of the same. And the religious people got it wrong again. Not appreciating how cleverly they were used in this fashion, they are now emboldened to pursue this matter further with the unintended consequence of forcing the court to finally say that Bahamians have a right to choose to gamble if gambling is permissible in this country for non-Bahamians

And so is buying a diamond ring, or buying and apple product made in China or denying children health care, or cheating on your taxes when returning home, or coming late to work...But we do it anyway

To the editor, 'advert' golfer. Really? Or do you mean avid

Again, that is a false equivalency to equate marijauna to gambling and again it's an aside to minimize the argument to that one. As for contradiction, you miss the point---instead of repeating I will just ask to read my post again.

Also, might I add the moral argument fails precisely for the point that gambling is allowed to take place in this country--whether it involves tourists and not Bahamians is irrelevant and if I were wanting to expose the weakness of that argument which, I find completely duplicitous, I would simply point to two simple things: public nudity and vulgarity. Both are against the law for Bahamians and tourist alike and is equally enforced in this country and rightfully so. And is a moral issue. Yet, when it comes to gambling, the Moralists are cherry-picking the issue they would condemn, recognizing that there are benefits of employment and financial spin-offs and also, more importantly, that if they go all the way with this argument of making ALL gambling and gaming in this country illegal for tourist as well, we would be worse than Jamaica.

But I don't want to argue that point because it is really too dishonest to take that moral stance. Arguing from an economic point is a stronger poise.

The analogy with weed/marijuana is not appropriate because: a) we don't have a legalized farm selling the stuff to tourists and not Bahamians, b) marijuana has always been illegal for everyone in this country. But that is an aside. The issue here is 3000+ persons potentially unemployed. That is about one-third of the work force at Atlantis. That's almost 4 times the amount of persons who were laid off by Atlantis in 2009. Do you remember what that did to the dept of social services; to NIB? To the country--that was the reason why the unemployment benefit was extended by the then Fnm govt and that was only 800 persons!
Just think for a second what that would mean to the unemployment figure: we have a workforce of about 80,000. Our unemployment rate is above 12%. 3000 is 3.75% of the workforce. We are in a negative economic growth, which means that our country is spending more than its making to keep it running. This is playing with matches in a warehouse filled with gasoline.

I have learnt not to predict what the majority of Bahamian will support or vote for. As for me, I am just now getting to understand the consequence of my vote in the referendum myself. Total disclosure, I will be voting 'Yes', but this is not about me nor my vote. Just about how my understanding of what it means on both sides and how the PM realistically and responsibly gave a possible outcome and how it affect this country.

If the vote is no, there will be thousands of mothers, fathers, etc out of a job. They have made NIB contributions and if sufficient were made, can and will apply for unemployment assistance for the next 13 to 26 weeks! They can and will and get assistance from Dept of social services in the form of rental assistance, food stamps, lunch meal plans for their children. They can and will be referred to their local psychiatrist for depressive symptoms, adjustment disorder, and yes, suicidal thoughts. The Drs will treat with expensive medications, write in support of them receiving financial support and refer them to other treatment centers that are already overcrowded. Some of them will default on their loans and mortgages and can and will apply for the govt assistance for their mortgage. And that's not even talking about the children of these parents. But just do the math and the COST of voting NO might just be the tipping point for us. In terms of finances, the PM has no choice but to say what potentially could happen. He has no choice but to hope for the vote to be yes because the other way will be of biblical proportions. And here is a prediction for you, if the vote is no, in ten years the vote will change but the damage to these present workers would have already been done.