Much food for thought! Boy, it pays to listen and pay attention.

If the PM is successful in doing this, my faith in him will be restored but he has to get it together. I am just saddened that this Government just missed a wonderful opportunity to establish a National Lottery because it seemed that all the focus was on getting the web shops regularised and it was obvious (in my opinion) that the lottery was just a second thought with no concrete plan in place to establish it. What a pity. I for one, however, will not count this Government out. We need to give them a chance to rectify this and not be so harsh. All leaders make mistakes and I believe Mr. Christie meant well. Personally, I am still rooting for him and his team. This whole exercise must be very sobering.

This whole process was flawed from the beginning with the PM putting his foot in his mouth every time he spoke. I for one am very glad the yes vote DID NOT go through. It's a wake up call to this Government. You wanted our opinion and you got it. The answer is NO! Now close the number houses down!

Or better yet, stop taking campaign donations from known criminals and thereby alleviate your obligation to "regularise" them.

"To excuse illegal behaviour because it is supposedly too expensive to counter is unconscionable. To excuse illegal behaviour because it creates employment is inexcusable, and to excuse illegal behaviour because some believe that it will bring additional revenue to the Public Treasury is similarly inexcusable."

Spot on, Mr. Ingraham and I am not one of your fans.

Well said Dr. Munroe. I believe that there is something very sinister about this entire process, Could it be that we are on the verge of becoming like Columbia where our Governments could be purchased by criminals and might I add quite blatantly?

What an amazing disgrace!

Dear God. The criminals have been given a license to rally in the streets. What have we come to as a country? And I suppose that the choreographed dancers are also web shop employees as well. Wow. Didn't know they had so many.

The PM did not do his homework on this one. If he is prepared to use strong-arm tactics on the Bahamian tax payers, as one writer suggests, then I agree that he should strong arm the persons who owe substantial amounts in real property taxes, BEC, NIB and the like. Work with what we have and get that in order first. If we have trouble collecting these taxes, what makes us think that the Numbers Boys will be any different.

So are you saying that we have "legalised" number houses? If so, you are contradicting yourself. Selling numbers is illegal and worse is being done under the guise of being a web shop selling donuts and surfing the web. Whether it employs 1 person or 1 million persons, those persons are being employed illegally and cannot be recognised under our labour laws as "employees". There is no getting around it so it stands reason that anyone can just as easily set up a marijuana plant (which is illegal) under guise of selling "medicine", employ a few hundred people, pay NIB and give something to charity and according to our Prime Miniister because things are tough with the economy, that makes it okay. If that is the case, then we are sadly disillusioned. Further, I say again that as so many people who support this are saying that they want to do what the tourist do in our country, please think. At the end of the day, legalising number houses, still does not legalise gambling so it does not put our black selves on par with the tourists as we cannot take our black selves into any casino and gamble.