Bingo in New Mexico
Posted in Casino on 04/18/2016 08:21 pm by Anthony
New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force came to an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Indian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased since 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.