Members of Parliament are expected to table, debate and subsequently pass a new gaming legislation in the House of Assembly before the end of the week.

According to Attorney General Carl Bethel, the gaming amendment will entail some significant changes. 

“This will greatly increase the powers of the Gaming Board to enforce not only against licensed operators, who may infringe, but against unlicensed operators,” Mr. Bethel said. 

“It will create a whole new investigating agency of the Gaming Board with the powers of a peace officer, subject to court order warrants and search warrants. 

“It’s a very farsighted legislation and then there will be regulations as well that capture the agreed legal taxation framework for the gaming industry.”       

The attorney general agrees that the once delicate relationship between the government and gaming operators have improved.

“Well, it was a long negotiating process and we had to recalibrate some of the rates,” Mr. Bethel said.

“Instead of four rates going all the way up, we settled on two, but this has been a very dynamic process that has in a sense involved all the gaming house operators except for one or two, who for their own reasons had to deal with their own issues didn’t want to meet at the table.

“However, the law is the law and once the regulations are passed, they apply to all.”  

Minister responsible for gaming Dionisio D’Aguilar is looking to pull in some $50 million from that industry.