Archive for July, 2026
New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Native bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
The act of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a risk at the current time, so you could think that there might be little appetite for visiting Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. In reality, it seems to be operating the opposite way, with the atrocious market conditions creating a greater eagerness to gamble, to try and locate a fast win, a way from the difficulty.
For the majority of the citizens living on the meager nearby wages, there are 2 common forms of wagering, the national lotto and Zimbet. Just as with practically everywhere else on the globe, there is a state lottery where the chances of winning are remarkably small, but then the jackpots are also surprisingly large. It’s been said by economists who understand the situation that many don’t buy a card with the rational expectation of profiting. Zimbet is based on either the national or the English soccer leagues and involves determining the outcomes of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, on the other hand, pamper the incredibly rich of the society and vacationers. Up till a short time ago, there was a very large tourist industry, built on safaris and visits to Victoria Falls. The economic anxiety and associated conflict have cut into this trade.
Among Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, there are two in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has 5 gaming tables and slots, and the Plumtree gambling hall, which has only slot machine games. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has only slots. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the two of which contain gaming tables, slot machines and electronic poker machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, both of which has video poker machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s casinos and the above mentioned lottery and Zimbet (which is quite like a pools system), there are 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.
Given that the economy has diminished by beyond 40 percent in recent years and with the connected deprivation and violence that has come to pass, it isn’t well-known how well the sightseeing business which supports Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the near future. How many of the casinos will still be around till conditions get better is merely not known.