Good morning, everyone! Hope you all had a great Christmas and a safe New Year.
January 8th celebrated our official one-year anniversary. It has been a wonderful and very successful year. In the past year, we have gone from a brand new organization to the “go-to” place for charitable gaming issues. A huge thank you to all of you who have helped make our organization what it is. We have a very positive outlook for 2022 and expect large growth again, especially with the threats that are facing our industry.
Our preferred vendors would like to send out a thank you also. Several of you have moved some of your services over to them and they appreciate the support. All of our preferred vendors have renewed for 2022 and look forward to continuing to service your organizations. I’m glad to hear they are all serving your needs well. For those of you that have not considered utilizing any of them, here is the list of preferred vendors which are out there that offer discounts to our members. https://ndgamingalliance.com/member-benefits/
Some major news. I recently announced that I will be running for the ND House of Representatives. I of course will remain on as Executive Director if elected. It will be good to have an expert in charitable gaming as a statewide elected official. There is a definite need to have someone who knows the ups and downs of our industry to help share all the good things that charitable gaming does for our state. We will be hiring a lobbyist to continue to represent the charitable gaming industry during the 2023 session. The lobbyist was always in our plans anyways as we are expecting an influx of laws to be considered aimed at reducing E-Tab machines in North Dakota which you all know would be crippling. We will do everything in our power to prevent this from happening.
In our last update, I mentioned that the North Dakota Gaming Advisory committee was going to be meeting the week of Jan 24-28 to review and consider the new Administrative Rules that have been written. I reached out to the committee, and it sounds like the public meeting has been delayed and won’t happen that week. We will keep you all updated as to when that is rescheduled. I know several of you want to attend that so we will let you know as soon as we know the dates that it will be rescheduled.
ND Gaming Alliance will be sending out a mailing here in the next few days to all the charities with a “deal” to bring on more of your sites as members. Please keep an eye out for that. We will send it out both via USPS and via email.
In the meantime, please continue to reach out with any questions, comments, or concerns. We are always here to help your organization and look forward to another great year.
Sincerely,
Mike Motschenbacher
ND Gaming Alliance
701-471-9014