{"id":29832,"date":"2013-01-04T08:36:56","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T13:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=29832"},"modified":"2013-01-04T08:59:16","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T13:59:16","slug":"numbers-houses-bribery-attempts-a-national-disgrace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2013\/01\/numbers-houses-bribery-attempts-a-national-disgrace","title":{"rendered":"Gambling Vote Bribery A National Disgrace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-29258\" title=\"Bonus-gift-bribe\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/gift-money-bonus-incentive-bribe.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/gift-money-bonus-incentive-bribe.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/gift-money-bonus-incentive-bribe-150x112.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>The \u201cnational disgrace\u201d of illegal gambling hijacked the Christmas spirit, turning the tradition of gift-giving into an attempt to sway public opinion on the upcoming referendum, Pastor Lyall Bethel charged.<\/p>\n<p>The Grace Community Church leader hit out at the recent trend of numbers operators giving away houses, cars and money at huge holiday events. He also criticised successive governments allowing the underground gambling racket to flourish for decades.<\/p>\n<p>According to Pastor Bethel, the lavish prizes given away by some numbers houses over the last month were nothing more than an attempt to \u201cbribe the Bahamian electorate\u201d into voting for the decriminalisation of gambling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDuring one of their block parties . . . children were seen being given $10 notes in envelopes, while later moneys were thrown into the air for residents to scramble to get.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow sickening to see Bahamians grovelling on the ground for filthy lucre, encouraged to give in to a spirit of covetousness by these supposed Robin Hoods of the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Illegal numbers houses hijacked the Christmas spirit with their bribery, turning the season into a sickening attempt to sway the Bahamian electorate into voting for the decriminalisation of gambling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[31,137,179],"class_list":["post-29832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-crime","tag-gambling","tag-vote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}