The recent attempted robbery of an armored truck outside an Island Game web shop underscores the need for the sector to be regulated, said Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe yesterday. "It does tell us more than anything that you have to pay more attention, so if they are to remain open then they have to be regularized," Wilchcombe said. "They have to be where there is security, certain monitoring, all that but again our problem is not the robbery of the web shops; our problem is Bahamians have become careless about each other."
On Sunday, four masked men, with high-powered weapons, and at least one handgun, tried to carry out the heist, police said. Police have arrested two suspects in connection with the attempted robbery outside Island Game at the intersection of Fire Trail and Cowpen Roads. Advice Wilchcombe also said the government has received informal advice from international gaming giant GTECH ahead of the January 28 gambling referendum. Wilchcombe said the government had discussions last month with GTECH about its plans to help the Atlantis Resort expand its gaming options.
He said he used the opportunity to get advice from GTECH on the technology used to monitor games of chance. "They're the group that is considering an operation with Atlantis and they're going to assist Atlantis with creating mobile games for mobile devices, so the focus of that meeting was for that but we're also aware that they have expertise in the gaming industry, so we used the opportunity to talk about a number of other things but the focus really was their involvement with Atlantis.
"In fact, when the whole question of lotteries and web shops came up we raised it to find out about their technology because that's one of the things we've had to consider, the technology and causing for the proper monitoring of whether there is a web shop or lottery." Although Prime Minister Perry Christie has said that any funds derived from a national lottery or regulated web shops would go towards education, culture and scholarships the government has not provided a specific breakdown of how the money would be used. "Those matters will have to be looked at," Wilchcombe said.
"In fact, we're looking at some of those matters now because you're not sure of the numbers, so there is uncertainty there but clearly the focus will be education, culture, sports, healthcare. We know where we require additional funding right now. "We will have to take a page from other countries like the United States where right there in Florida we see contributions from lotteries go to education. It must be determined on what our environment demands." The advanced poll for the referendum is set for Monday.
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