Dear Editor:

Prime Minister Perry Christie announced last week that his government will be bringing in consultants from South Africa who will be advising the government on how to proceed with legalising and regulating the numbers business in The Bahamas. And that would be less than incredible were it not for this key thing - the numbers business is illegal in South Africa.

The legal forms of gambling in South Africa are horse betting, casinos and a national lottery. The National Gambling Board of South Africa states that interactive online gaming and the betting on the fall of numbers in a different jurisdiction there is illegal - and in terms of the history of this issue there, an attempt a few years ago to legalise the numbers racket failed in part due to concerns about money laundering.

You would recall that this point about money laundering and numbers houses in The Bahamas has been raised by me on numerous occasions, as well as by others who know and understand fully how money laundering and the numbers racket are and can be tied together. How ironic it is that the country now being looked to by The Bahamas government for consultation on numbers actually refused to legalise numbers in part because of this same threat.

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