Archive for November 12th, 2009

Zimbabwe gambling dens

The act of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the current time, so you might think that there would be little affinity for visiting Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. Actually, it seems to be functioning the opposite way, with the critical market conditions leading to a bigger eagerness to wager, to try and discover a quick win, a way out of the situation.

For the majority of the citizens subsisting on the abysmal local earnings, there are two popular types of gaming, the state lotto and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else on the planet, there is a national lotto where the chances of succeeding are unbelievably tiny, but then the jackpots are also remarkably big. It’s been said by economists who study the concept that the lion’s share do not purchase a ticket with an actual belief of winning. Zimbet is built on one of the local or the UK soccer leagues and involves predicting the outcomes of future matches.

Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other shoe, pander to the extremely rich of the society and tourists. Until not long ago, there was a very substantial vacationing business, based on safaris and visits to Victoria Falls. The market anxiety and connected bloodshed have cut into this market.

Amongst Zimbabwe’s casinos, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has 5 gaming tables and one armed bandits, and the Plumtree Casino, which has only slot machine games. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just one armed bandits. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair of which offer gaming tables, slots and video machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, both of which offer video poker machines and blackjack, roulette, and craps tables.

In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the above talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is quite like a parimutuel betting system), there is a total of 2 horse racing tracks in the state: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd municipality) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.

Seeing as that the economy has shrunk by beyond forty percent in recent years and with the connected deprivation and conflict that has arisen, it is not understood how well the sightseeing business which supports Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the near future. How many of them will carry through until conditions improve is merely not known.

 

Bingo in New Mexico

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New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. 10 years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a hot button issue like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.