A lottery has been ruled out for Bermuda as it would end up being a tax on the island's poor and do little to boost tourist arrivals.
The Green Paper on Gaming contained reports by research company Innovation and a local Task Force on Gaming.
The Report by Innovation stated: "A lottery is not likely to draw either additional tourists to Bermuda or attract additional capital to support tourism infrastructure."
It estimated Bermuda would create $17m in yearly revenue from the lottery. In other words, 20,000 members of Bermuda's adult population would have to play $71 into the lottery every month to create that revenue.
The Report said demographics of lottery players tend to be black men, secondary school dropouts and those with lower household incomes: "For this reason it has been argued that lotteries are a regressive tax as they appeal to players with lower incomes."
The Innovation Report said a lottery would not attract more tourists to Bermuda.
The Task Force on Gaming report, which included Wendell Hollis as chair, hoteliers Ed Trippe and Norman Mastalair, and Deena Harvey and Marc Daniels, agreed with the Innovation group that it would not add to Bermuda's tourist numbers.
The Task Force said Bermuda would not be able to compete against lotteries from other jurisdictions because of the island's small population: "The size of prizes would be significantly less however, the chances of winning would be proportionately greater.
"We are also of the view that the revenue assessment contained in the Innovation report may be overly optimistic."
It added: "The costs of administration of a lottery in relative terms, having regard to the likely revenue to be received would make a local lottery less of an obvious revenue returning option."
