Above: Bermuda

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Bermuda’s government is shelving plans to put the question of gaming to a popular referendum, and will be moving the question to a vote by Parliament, the ruling One Bermuda Alliance party announced.

Instead, the government will be conducting a public information and consultation campaign, it said, before bringing the Gaming Bill to a vote in the House.

A spokesperson for the OBA said the government felt that “Bermuda’s economic recovery was too delicate, too important for political games. Jobs and new investment depend on our not allowing politics to derail this process.”

The gaming referendum had been one of the OBA’s election pledges.

“Yes, the decision does not fulfill an election pledge to hold a referendum, but the government made a more important promise to people and that was to do all it could to create jobs,” the OBA said in a release on Saturday. “That, of course, is the government’s number one priority.”

Casinos are not currently permitted in Bermuda.