Fines for selling “numbers” to increase to $2,500 fine or imprisonment Loop Cayman Islands

Black Immigrant Daily News

If you are betting or gambling on a cruise ship while it is in international waters or you are participating in a raffles staged by a church, service organization or voluntary associations to raise funds for their programmes, then Cayman’s Gambling Act does not apply to you. You may therefore not be charged with any gambling offences.

However, if you are found betting in a local bar or throwing dice for stakes on the roadside or trying your chances at a common gaming house, you may be guilty of an offence under the Gambling Act and subject to higher fines and/or imprisonment under the proposed changes to the Gambling Act. The application and enforcement of the Gambling Act and amendments (if passed), however, may prove to be problematic because of misunderstandings as to what is a “common gaming house” and the fact that you only have to be present in one for the police to presume you committed an offence.

Common gaming house

To illustrate how wide net caught by the definition of “common gaming house” is, the Gambling Act defines it as follows:

‘common gaming house’ includes any place kept or used for gambling, to which the public, or any class of the public, has or may have access, and any place kept for habitual gambling, whether the public, or any class of the public, has or may have access thereto or not, and any place kept or used for the purpose of a public lottery.

By this definition, any place that the public has access to might be deemed to be a common gaming house depending on what police suspect is going on there or who frequents the establishment.

If convicted of playing a game for stakes in a local bar, barber shop or clothing store and that place is said to be a common gaming house, you should note that the proposed amendments to the Gambling Act state that the current fine of ten dollars will be raised to two thousand five hundred dollars or to imprisonment for a term of six months, or to both.

The Gambling Act goes further to imply that, even if you are not playing a game of stakes but you are found in a common gaming house, or found escaping therefrom, you shall be presumed to have been playing therein. In other words, if you decided to check out a new bar or get your hair cut at a barber shop considered to be a common gaming house, you may find yourself in trouble on your way out the door if the venue is raided by the police one night for gambling. This may happen because the Gambling Act presumes that you were gambling at the location unless you can prove otherwise.

In addition, if you are the owner of one of these establishments, the new amendments to the Gambling Act mean that, if convicted of an offence of permitting the relevant place to be used as a common gaming house, the fine will increase from a mere four hundred dollars to ten thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term of four years, or to both if the proposed amendments are passed in Parliament.

Unintended effects

Once the above changes to the Gambling Act are implemented, it is suspected that the police will ramp up their enforcement of the provisions of the Gambling Act, resulting in more raids, fines and arrests.

However, since some mom-and-pop shops and other small local businesses are said to be common locations for lottery sales (sometimes without the knowledge or consent of the owners), any overzealous enforcement by the police may have the unintended effect of disproportionately targeting small Caymanian business owners.

This may happen because law enforcement may conclude that certain types of small businesses mentioned above “fit the profile” for a common gaming house, leading some owners to be wrongfully accused of allowing their place to be used as a common gaming house. With Cayman being such a place, such wrongful accusations could lead to the destruction of reputations and loss of income, which are undesired outcomes for an innocent business owner who may already be struggling financially.

Public education necessary before changes made

For the foregoing reasons, including the room for confusion about which places might be deemed to be common gaming houses, policy makers are encouraged to hold public meetings as soon as possible to explain to members of the public the consequences of illegal gambling or playing a game for stakes in a common gaming house or simply being present in one at the time of a police raid.

Doing this may deter persons from using other people’s establishments as common gaming houses without the owners’ knowledge and may deter illegal gambling in general.

As an alternative to the proposed changes to the Gambling Act, policy makers should also consider whether lottery activities should be legalised and become regulated rather than remaining as offences.

Such regulation could include requirements for periodic inspection, subjecting relevant establishments to anti-money laundering rules and forcing them to have a minimum number of security personnel on staff and on the site at all times (to prevent crime and keep patrons safe).

Under a regulatory licence infrastructure, if the government charges gambling licence fees to vendors, this may also add much needed revenue to government coffers. This could be allocated to education, the environment or other area where funding is lacking.

Notwithstanding these suggestions, Cayman must ultimately get to the root of the problem i.e., the real reason that illegal activity is occurring in the first place. Without dealing with this important point, some form of illegal activity will always occur.

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