“Two eight nine”, “four six seven”, “nine three eight one”. These are the sounds of the thoughts that go through the minds of a Bahamians who play numbers as a way of life. These people rely on numbers to somehow solve their everyday problems and to abolish them from their financial slavery. Gaming in the Bahamas should be anything but legalized. The increasing amount of number houses today is ridiculous. They are the people who lead others to believe that there is an easy way to life, that money is the key to a happier life. These are type of thoughts that lead to an unfulfilled and purposeless society. I for one do not support this behavior and certainly do not support the move of legalizing gambling in the Bahamas. I feel that the legalization of gaming in the Bahamas will continue to give people false hope, impose poverty and increase crime.
Poverty is no stranger to the Bahamas. There is an estimated amount of 43,000 people today, who live in poverty in the Bahamas (Joseph Darville,). This number is constantly rising every day. One of the negative effects of gambling is that it encourages poverty. A study found that people in poor neighborhoods are twice as likely to have gambling problems. John W Welte, a Senior Research Scientist at University of Buffalo showed that 11 percent of people who were unemployed, received public assistance or lived in places of poverty were problem gamblers (John Welte). In a speech written by Walter Williams, an American Economist, he suggests three reasons for the cause of poverty. The reasons he lists are that people of poverty “cannot produce many things highly valued by others”, “they can produce things valued by others but they are prevented” or “they volunteer to be poor” (Walter Williams, para 3). One of his points mentioned that a stand out from the rest is where he says that people of poverty cannot produce many things