After wasting taxpayers' time and money, the Christie administration may be setting its sights on establishing a national lottery, but the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) would need to win the next general election for such a scheme to become a reality.
When he raised the matter in the House of Assembly on Wednesday, Obie Wilchcombe, the minister responsible for gaming, restarted a controversial conversation that reminded us, and many others in the electorate, of a key contributor to Bahamians in very large numbers losing trust in the government.
Wilchcombe raised the issue during debate on a resolution for the government to borrow up to $150 million to help fund repairs associated with Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Joaquin, which struck one year apart.
The national lottery issue was raised after Prime Minister Perry Christie faced a social media backlash for saying the government would consider a hurricane tax to provide funding to respond to hurricanes.
Wilchcombe revealed last Wednesday: "We are giving thought to lotteries in the future, and we are giving thought to the possibility of how it could work."
He indicated the government was considering whether it should be in the business of operating a national lottery or whether gaming house operators should operate it.
"Should we put the taxes up and let them pay a 17 to 18 percent tax?" Wilchcombe asked.
"All these things are being considered because the truth is, many countries in the world are now using the lottery for sports development, for educational development and cultural development."
If the government were to introduce a national lottery, it would again be disregarding the views of the majority voters who said no to the establishment of a national lottery and the regularization of web shops in the January 2013 referendum.
The voter turnout was low. There were 21,415 no votes for the question on web shops and 14,098 yes votes. There were 20,517 no votes for the national lottery question and 14,522 yes votes.
Ahead of the 2013 referendum, Christie refused to publicly state a position, instead taking a gamble, no doubt hoping the electorate would give the government the green light it wanted to regulate web shops.
Early on in this term, the government started the national discussion on gaming -- whether to regulate web shops, and whether to introduce a national lottery.
Its handling of the whole gambling issue was tremendously damaging to the Christie administration's image, and that tarnished image has not been cleaned up since.
Several months after coming to office in 2012, Christie spoke in Parliament about the challenges of creating a national lottery in The Bahamas, explaining that consultants advised that the demographics and geography of the country presented problems for its set up.
Christie said because of the large jackpots offered by the Florida lottery and this country's closeness to the United States, it is plausible that Bahamians would spend their cash on an American lottery ticket rather than at home.
He said that it would cost more to set up infrastructure for a lottery throughout Family Islands rather than on one island.
Ahead of the referendum, he said: "The mechanism for introducing a commercially run lottery would be to put the appropriate legislation in place in the event of a yes vote and then to invite tenders from commercial lottery operations to set out the basis on which they would operate the lottery."
Christie said, "The invitation to tender would provide the flexibility to potential operators to operate the lottery in the most beneficial way so as to maximize returns to the government, good causes, players and the operator while maintaining all of the appropriate protections for players."
At the time, he also said the option existed for the government to run a national lottery itself with input from external gaming experts and allow Bahamians to buy shares in the operation.
"Such a state-sponsored national lottery might even be based on the principle of widely-held public ownership such that thousands of ordinary Bahamians, by subscribing for shares through an IPO, would have a direct equity stake in the national lottery."
In a move that appeared disingenuous and one that seemed crafted for special interests, the government disregarded the will of voters in the 2013 referendum and brought legislation to regulate web shops.
The prime minister said a national lottery was not in the cards.
It is interesting now to see how the government would address the matter of a national lottery, how it would get around the findings the prime minister said were made by the foreign consultants.
The factors that led to the government's previous determination that a national lottery was not feasible are still at play.
Candia Dames, Guardian Managing Editor
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