Bingo in New Mexico
Posted in Casino on 09/02/2024 09:25 pm by Anthony
New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group came to an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners 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 that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.