The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

The Gaming Board yesterday signed an agreement with the Turks and Caicos Islands over the exchange of gaming information and services between the two.

Dr Daniel Johnson, the Bahamian regulator's executive chairman, said the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) provides an opportunity for The Bahamas to export its regulatory knowledge and frameworks acquired over the past 100 years.

"This is a big thing for us in The Bahamas," he added. "We’ve got 100 years of experience. We are highly regulated out of the 193 countries in the world. There are only six countries that enjoy the regulatory status we have as a 40/40 nation [in compliance with the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) recommendations].

"And in the Caribbean there are only two of us, and the other countries are asking us for consulting services. One of the weaknesses of our industries is we're importers. We are consumers, we're not exporters. And so the Gaming Board is taking the position now that we're going to export some of our expertise.

"In the first instance we were asked to do something with Turks and Caicos, which is our nearest neighbour has a great history, of course, with The Bahamas. That was a consulting service about their gaming industry. Phase one is complete, and we now have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to proceed with phase two to assist them in their regulatory framework. Getting them up to speed on it has been fantastic.”

While the MOU does not specify a timeline, providing these consultancy services should take 12 to 18 months to complete. Dr Johnson said: “That MOU doesn't have a timeline on it, but we'll try to be as efficient as we can. These services tend to take a year or 18 months to complete.

"And that is setting up regulatory frameworks that are tailor made to other countries who have seen what we've done in The Bahamas in gaming - online gaming, our infrastructure and systems - and assisting them to see how they can progress in their own jurisdictions”

Stuart Taylor, deputy permanent secretary for the Turks and Caicos Islands Gaming Control Commission, said the territory chose to collaborate with The Bahamas to improve its gaming regulations after a dismal mutual evaluation by the FATF in 2020.

He said: “In the Turks and Caicos Islands, the mutual evaluation report that was done in 2020 by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, one of the key recommendations that the report recommends was that agencies should work together to combat anti-money laundering and counter terror financing issues regionally.

"And, in order to do that, the Turks and Caicos Islands first reached out to Bermuda. We would have executed an MoU with Bermuda, I think, in May 2021. And after executing that memorandum, we reached out to our colleagues in The Bahamas, and we would have had intimate discussions with the Gaming Board for the Bahamas. And, finally, we have now signed a Memorandum of Understanding with The Bahamas."

Mr Taylor said the MOU's purpose is to understand how large casinos are operated in accordance with international anti-money laundering and counter terror financing standards, and he hopes to have Turks & Caicos officers either seconded or embedded with the Gaming Board.

He added: “What the Turks and Caicos Islands is trying to do with the memorandum of understanding is we are trying to get a better, intimate understanding of the way [in which] large casinos are regulated in accordance with anti-money laundering and counter terror financing conditions.

"We want to pull on The Bahamas’ 100 years of gaming experience so we can implement what The Bahamas would have learned over 100 years in the Turks and Caicos Islands. And also we want to help use the memorandum to foster and build capacity between our organisations.

“So we would like, hopefully, to have our officers either seconded or embedded for short periods with the Gaming Board to understand exactly how their methods of operandi is basically similar or different from u, because as a regulator we want to ensure that we have international standards across the board in the regulation process."