photograph of British Prime Minister John Major and a large group of children.

They were playing with a ball at 10 Downing Street, London, after Mr. Major announced plans for a sports academy supported by a 100 million grant of lottery money. This is not the first large amount of National Lottery money put to public use in Britain.

Bermuda, a Country where there is plenty of gambling, prefers that most of the benefits of that gambling go outside Bermuda. There is also a growing amount of accepted small time local gambling, the farce of "club'' bingo, cricket match Crown and Anchor, even lottery cards circulated from the United States and sold in local bars. That seems very strange. If we had no gambling at all, it would be perfectly understandable. However, it seems illogical to have gambling from which Bermuda does not benefit when so many countries are putting the proceeds of gambling to good public use.

By gambling we do not mean casinos. Casinos have often been suggested, even by former Premier Sir John Swan. There are people who see casinos as providing a tourist attraction. That was probably true when very few places had casinos but these days they are not a rarity. They are now in any number of locations in the United States, many of the islands and much of Central America. In other words, there are plenty of places today where people can gamble if they wish and we doubt that casinos would bring a rush of visitors to Bermuda.

We believe that casinos bring with them social problems and crime problems which Bermuda can do without. We think the potential problems are greater than any benefits Bermuda might derive. The same does not seem to be true of well-run lotteries.

We think a national lottery run by a quango, rather than by Government, would be well patronised by Bermudians and by visitors. It seems to us to have the potential to produce large sums of money which we see being used for health care. However the use should be specific and never again should we have a "hospital levy'' which does not go to the hospital. The costs of health care will be astronomical in a very few years and unless they are subsidised, good quality care will be only selectively available. That must be avoided.

There have been suggestions that the proceeds of a lottery should be used to support sport in Bermuda. There can be little objection to that in Bermuda since it would be hypocritical to criticise a sports lottery when sport today accepts so much support from things much more sinister, alcohol and tobacco.

The problem with cash support for sport is that so many sporting bodies are yet to demonstrate their own efficiencies, good management or ability to handle large sums.

However, if the lottery goes as well as we think it might, there could be enough money to support organisations other than the hospitals. Many major charities are badly in need of cash and fund-raising becomes increasingly difficult. The pit of charity money is not bottomless.

It does not seem very sensible to tolerate gambling which originates outside Bermuda and to reject local gambling which could benefit the Country.