The latest Government embarrassment over banning gaming machines demonstrates the perils and pitfalls of taking an ad hoc approach to the whole question of gambling.

For several years now, this newspaper has been advocating a full review of the issue by a commission that could then make recommendations on how Government should go forward.

A commission of this kind could examine the pros and cons of gambling from an economic and social standpoint and look at the challenges of regulating the industry in this hi-tech era.

Instead, Bermuda is taking a piecemeal approach in which what should be a relatively simple law banning gaming machines seems to be doomed to continued amendments as technology keeps overtaking the Island's parliamentary draftsmen.

The result? The law banning the machines, which has been amended twice already, will now have to be changed on the floor of the House today in order to accomplish what it set out to achieve.

And there is no telling if it will be able to do that.

Nor does the legislation even attempt to fill other loopholes like the ingenious idea of having a ship sail offshore once or twice a day to allow visitors and residents alike to have a flutter.

It would be tempting, but unfair, to place all of the blame on the draftsmen. Having said that, Legislative Affairs Minister Michael Scott's explanation that "it was extremely carefully drafted but it was drafted in the context of meeting a deadline", is almost assured a place in most collections of nonsensical political quotations, not to mention the Not the Um Um Show.

But the reality is that technological advances and the ingenuity of bar owners and others makes stopping this kind of gambling as difficult as holding onto a soaking wet bar of soap.

Instead, the Government should appoint a Commission of Inquiry to deal with the whole issue.