By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 23, 2023 — As someone who has been playing numbers regularly from the late 1950s when Percy Munnings and Talbot “Stokes” Thompson were the two major “illegal” numbers operators in New Providence, the results of yesterday’s bye-election in West Grand Bahama and Bimini provided me with a cornucopia of numbers I must play over the next several weeks.
Currently, I play several numbers daily, although my current financial situation has reduced what I wager on each of them to 50 cents, having long ago accepted the fact that I have a serious addiction when it comes to playing the numbers.
When the former Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government finally “gave in” to the well-organized campaign to legalize the numbers game in The Bahamas, I no longer felt guilty about the high priority I placed on purchasing my favourite numbers daily. The results of yesterday’s bye-election now means that I shall play the four-digits numbers 2150 and 1276 at least for one week along with my regular numbers.
My decision in this regard is based on the fact Kingsley Smith, the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) candidate, amassed 2150 compared to the 1276 votes received by runner-up Bishop Ricardo Grant, the opposition Free National Movement (FNM) candidate.
I shall also add the three-digits number 307 to the numbers I buy daily for the next week or so. That’s the meagre number of votes received by Coalition of Independents candidate Lincoln Bain; however, the two independent candidate, Daquan Swain and Terneille Burrows, did not receive sufficient votes to also include their totals among the regular numbers I buy – Swain received 28 votes and Burrows was able to convince only four people to vote for her.
When I lived in Freeport, Grand Bahama, I played my numbers daily at CHANCES GAMES, operated by Jarol Investments, Ltd., whose CEO is Raymond R.H. Culmer.
With headquarters on Logwood Road, CHANCES is one of the major gaming operations in The Bahamas, with outlets in New Providence and several Family Islands
When the Bahamas House of Assembly passed legislation in 2014 legalizing the numbers game, no one envisaged that this new industry would so rapidly become the business behemoth it has become. In my view, however, unquestionably the principal reason is that gambling is an infectious disease among a huge segment of the Bahamian population.
This surely is one of the reasons why the late Sir Stafford Sands and the former United Bahamian Party (UBP) government passed legislation banning Bahamians from gambling in casinos when casino gambling was introduced in our hotels. The real reason for this action by the UBP, of course, was racist to the core. The UBP vehemently did not want black Bahamians to routinely be able to shoot dice or play blackjack side-by-side with white patrons in Bahamian casinos because they believed this would not be good for the country’s tourism industry.
So, they propagated the theory that black Bahamians were not responsible enough to manage their income and would gamble away their entire paychecks; thus, Bahamian families would suffer. It is somewhat ironic that casino-style gambling in a big way is now a reality among “natives” in the web shop casinos, but it is still officially illegal for them to gamble in the big casinos in our hotels. In the meantime, owners of web shop casinos have amassed considerable wealth and are now enjoying nouveau riche lifestyles.
What’s more, they have professionally improved their operational skills considerably and have gained considerable respect throughout the country for their ongoing philanthropic contributions.
Given these facts, I am one of those who strongly believe that if the Government of The Bahamas is inclined to grant any future casino licenses, the current operators of web shops should receive preferential consideration.
Prime Minister Philip E. Davis continues to demonstrate – as he again did in leading the party’s candidate to a lop-sided victory in the West Grand Bahama and Bimini bye-election – that he is a luminous, bright shining star in the current political firmament of the Progressive Liberal Party, and he should indeed include establishing small-scale casinos as a tourism promotion incentive in some of our Family Islands, with licenses strictly reserved for Bahamians.
