The T&T Mem­bers Club As­so­ci­a­tion (TTM­CA) is warn­ing that in its cur­rent form the Gam­bling (Gam­ing and Bet­ting) Con­trol Bill, 2016, which goes to Par­lia­ment for de­bate from Fri­day, will re­sult on the vir­tu­al shut down of the lo­cal gam­ing in­dus­try and mas­sive job loss­es.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the group said while it had been lob­by­ing for leg­is­la­tion to prop­er­ly and fair­ly reg­u­late the in­dus­try, the Bill con­tains sev­er­al claus­es they con­sid­ered to be flawed. They want the leg­is­la­tion to go be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee be­fore it is de­bat­ed.

The TTM­CA said it had more than a year to study the Bill and to get le­gal ad­vice. They are ap­peal­ing to the Gov­ern­ment to en­sure a good law is passed to prop­er­ly reg­u­late the in­dus­try.

The group said a Bill was laid in Par­lia­ment last year but was not de­bat­ed to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion and it is the very same leg­is­la­tion that is be­ing re-in­tro­duced in­to the Par­lia­ment once again for de­bate.

A check of the T&T Par­lia­ment web­site shows that the Bill was in­tro­duced in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Ju­ly 1 by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert. It pro­vides for, among oth­er things, es­tab­lish­ment of a Gam­bling (Gam­ing and Bet­ting) Con­trol Com­mis­sion to reg­u­late the sec­tor. Tough penal­ties are pre­scribed for breach­es of the law.

At present four pieces of leg­is­la­tion make up the li­cenc­ing and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for the in­dus­try. The sec­tor has ex­pand­ed rapid­ly in re­cent years and while there are no le­gal casi­no op­er­at­ing in the coun­try, there are 72 reg­is­tered pri­vate mem­bers' clubs that op­er­ate like casi­nos.

Gov­ern­ment is of the view that, if prop­er­ly reg­u­lat­ed, the gam­ing in­dus­try can con­tribute to the econ­o­my by cre­at­ing em­ploy­ment and gen­er­at­ing an ad­di­tion­al $500 mil­lion in rev­enue an­nu­al­ly. It is es­ti­mat­ed that the ex­ist­ing un­reg­u­lat­ed in­dus­try em­ploys some 7,000 work­ers with an as­so­ci­at­ed week­ly wage bill of about $6.7 mil­lion. In his 2016/2017 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Im­bert said T&T is the on­ly coun­try in the world with "an open­ly thriv­ing gam­bling sec­tor that is to­tal­ly un­reg­u­lat­ed." He said the Bill will bring all forms of bet­ting and gam­ing ac­tiv­i­ties un­der a com­pre­hen­sive and ro­bust frame­work of reg­u­la­tions meet­ing the glob­al stan­dards re­quired by the Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force (FATF) and the Caribbean Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force (CFATF).

How­ev­er, the TTM­CA is rais­ing ob­jec­tions to sev­er­al pro­vi­sions in the Bill, claim­ing they are un­nec­es­sar­i­ly re­stric­tive and "will sti­fle the growth of the in­dus­try and ren­der its reg­u­la­tion un­wieldy."

The group is al­so ob­ject­ing to some of the penal­ties pre­scribed in the leg­is­la­tion which can in­clude fines on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion of up to $25 mil­lion.

"How does one jus­ti­fy treat­ing things with so high an of­fence brack­et, $25 mil­lion, $1 mil­lion, et cetera, on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion alone?" the group asked in its state­ment.