Bahamas Ponders Widespread Casino Gaming Expansion

The future of pending casino legislation in the Bahamas will likely determine the country’s tourism future, as the destination prepares to consider sweeping casino gaming reforms in advance of next year’s launch of the $3.5 billion Baha Mar resort.

The new mega resort, expected to bring millions of additional tourists to the destination, will feature a strong emphasis on casino gaming.

Gaming legislation currently before the country’s Parliament would allow Bahamas-based casinos at popular resort properties, including the massive Atlantis Paradise Island and Baha Mar, to offer sports betting and online gaming via cell phones and computers, among other gaming options.

Billed as the newest property on “the Bahamian Riviera,” the Baha Mar development will feature what the company describes as the Caribbean’s largest casino, a 97,000 square-foot facility featuring private high-limit rooms, state-of-the-art machines and every table game in the world, according to company officials.

“One cannot underestimate how modernization of these gaming regulations will expand and support tourism in the Bahamas,” said Robert Sands, Baha Mar’s senior vice-president of governmental and external affairs, in a recent interview.

Sands said the legislation and the Bahamas casino facility will combine to help the country’s gaming industry compete with world-class gaming destinations including Macau, Singapore, and Las Vegas. The new regulations will allow gaming to take place anywhere on the resort’s premises, said Sands.

Earlier this year Obie Wilchcombe, the Bahamas tourism minister, described the casino gaming industry as “fundamentally important” to the country’s tourism infrastructure.

Source: Travel Pulse, http://www.travelpulse.com/news/destinations/bahamas-ponders-widespread-casino-gaming-expansion.html