New Mexico Bingo
Posted in Casino on 04/01/2021 09:25 pm by Esperanza
New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with two important 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 over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.