The Tribune

BY DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

DR DANIEL Johnson, executive chairman of the Gaming Board, wants to issue a gaming license by the end of this year in Grand Bahama and a second one by next year.

The board also plans to extend gaming to the Family Islands.

The announcement was made on Friday at the official opening of new offices at the Gaming Board on Settler’s Way in Freeport.

Referring to a recommendation made nearly six decades ago, Dr Johnson said it’s now time to fulfil the mandate to Bahamianise the gaming industry.

“Y’all have three gaming licenses for hotel and casino in GB, and us in the Gaming Board, we ain’t get a penny from them for hotel casino gaming and licences in almost 20 years,” he said.

“That’s what I come here for. By the end of this year, Minister Moxey, we want to issue one licence.

“By next year, I want to be true to my father-in-law’s mandate and my father’s mandate. I want to issue another licence to a Bahamian group in GB.”

In the Family Islands, Dr Johnson said licences will be granted to Bahamians for i-gaming.

“We are going to extend something called i-gaming into these boutique hotels. The licences again should be issued to Bahamians in those islands,” he said.

Dr Johnson noted that the gaming entertainment industry is large in the United States. The Bahamas, he said, has been left behind.

He recalled that over 50 years ago a commissioned report recommended to the new Bahamian government that it Bahamianise the gaming industry.

“I come to tell you 55 years later you have not carried out that mandate,” said the executive chairman.

In 1965, Dr Johnson said Nassau, Bahamas, Orlando, Florida, and Las Vegas, Nevada, were the three kingpins of the tourism and gaming entertainment industry in the world.

Today, Nevada welcomes 50 million visitors a year, Orlando welcomes over 40 million a year, and Nassau only 5 to 7 million a year.

“They have gone to 50 (million) and we on 5. The thing that puzzles me why I am going to challenge you is that 55 years later we are way behind our peers,” Dr Johnson said.

“The cruise ship pulls up to our front door and offloads 5,000 people a day, and we got no native show in Nassau, and you got no casino in GB.

“We are in a tropical paradise. I come to announce to y’all today we want this business back and we coming to get it. I (am) issuing that license this year,” he said.

Dr Johnson said that a few weeks ago the world stood still as a 1.2B jackpot was being offered in the US.

“That’s how big this thing is,” he said. “The recommendation of the commissioned report is not just for you to have a ticket - it is for us to own it.

“So, the mandate of this new board is very clear. We are in a rebrand, renew, and rebuild phase. I am serious about my people, and I think y’all in GB have been through enough. This is now the time to go for it,” he said.