Charitable Gaming helps keep taxes low in Bismarck-Mandan.

Posted: Jun 23 2022

How does charitable game help keep taxes low in Bismarck-Mandan? Indirectly through the Bismarck-Mandan Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB). You may not think about it when you sit down to play blackjack, bingo or paper and electronic pull-tabs offered at the five charitable gaming locations that benefit the CVB, but charitable gaming allows the CVB to fulfill its mission to promote engaging visitor experiences resulting in community economic growth and quality of place, which in turn, benefits the community in numerous ways.

Sheri Grossman, CEO of the CVB explains,

“Visitors generate sales and other taxes that can be used by city government to fund not only roads and other infrastructure, but also property tax relief. This additional revenue helps ease the financial burden for our local citizens. This is the essence of the benefits that can be reaped by our entire community.”

Visitors to the Bismarck-Mandan area are represented in two different ways. First, a visitor that is attending a meeting or an event and second, the leisure traveler. Attracting both types of visitors have their advantages.

The first type of visitor is part of 500 multi-day meetings and events that draw over 378,000 attendees annually. These attendees spend over $32.6M. Of that, $10.5M is from regional, national, and international groups. Which adds up to be lot of out-of-state money injected into the local economy through direct expenditures to hotels, restaurants, gas stations, attractions, shopping destinations and much more, it benefits all residents of the community.

“The money from charitable gaming helps us provide services to those planning meetings and events. Planning and executing successful events is time consuming and expensive,” said Grossman. “We provide a variety of meeting and event planning services at no cost to the planners.”

The benefits from the leisure traveler can also be felt in the community, says Grossman.

“It is no secret that our community needs an increased workforce. Research shows that most new residents are a visitor first—our role in bringing visitors to our community assists in the critical role of aiding in our employment needs. Residents and visitors want many of the same things such as restaurants, attractions, shopping, parks, trails, and a safe community; getting new people to our community to visit is an essential step to filling our need for an expanded workforce.”

In all, without charitable gaming, the CVB would be hard pressed to fulfill its objectives.

“The funding received from our gaming operations is used to enhance the marketing efforts of the CVB and provide services and assistance to meetings, conventions, and events. These funds allow us to have a competitive marketing edge with other communities. Vying for meeting and events is a very aggressive process; we need these resources to be at a competitive level. This funding is used to attract new meetings and events, as well as retain current events and meetings. Every convention and visitor’s bureau throughout the country is striving to maintain current and secure new business—these funds allow us to do just that,” said Grossman.