The Vote Yes and Vote No campaigns yesterday made final appeals to voters ahead of today's controversial gambling referendum, with the Save Our Bahamas group holding an event at Arawak Cay, and Vote Yes spokeswoman Theresa Moxey-Ingraham delivering a national address.
Moxey-Ingraham asked Bahamians to make the right choice and vote yes.
In turn, Save Our Bahamas spokesmen Pastor Lyall Bethel and Rev. Dr. Ranford Patterson marched from Rawson Square to Arawak Cay with supporters, urging Bahamians to vote no.
Bethel said the march was held to call the nation "back to repentance".
"We've strayed from faith and trust in God," he said.
But Moxey-Ingraham said naysayers have been arguing that if Bahamians vote yes the country would be doomed.
"We will have the opportunity to set the stage to usher in nation-changing legislation which will affect the lives of all of us who love this country and call it home," she said.
"The naysayers have been telling you that a yes vote will mean that our country will be doomed, that our work ethic will be destroyed, that our children and families will go naked and hungry and that we will all be heading straight for the fire and brimstone of eternal damnation."
Bethel, who is a senior pastor at Grace Community Church, said the Vote Yes campaign has been giving away blood money.
Web shop bosses have given away laptops, television sets, cars and even houses in past events.
"Every one of those free giveaways was blood money taken from the poor at the end of the totem pole who believe that luck and chance are the ways to get ahead in life," Bethel said.
"The prizes came off the blood, sweat and tears of people trying to get out of poverty."
Bethel noted that the government did not provide much education ahead of today's vote.
"Nobody with sense signs a blank check. You want to see what's written down," he said.
"You don't have to have a religious issue or a moral objection but there is a commonsense reasoning [against it].
"Legalizing gambling would create a permanent lower class."
However, Moxey-Ingraham said she does not see the referendum as one of vice or virtue.
"To my mind, vice and virtue are matters of personal choice -- mine to freely choose, and the divine spirit -- and [God] alone convicts and judges," she said.
"Let's vote yes and send our government the message that the operators, employees and patrons of the Bahamian-owned sector of the gaming industry are entitled to the same degree of legal protection, respect and regard that is afforded to the foreign-owned sector of the industry."
Voters will be asked whether they support the regulation and taxation of web shops and whether they support the establishment of a national lottery.
Prime Minister Perry Christie has said that if the Constitutional Commission recommends that the casino question be addressed, it would be included on the ballot of the constitutional referendum promised later this year.
Currently, all forms of gambling are illegal for Bahamians in The Bahamas.

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