Bingo in New Mexico
Posted in Casino on 10/06/2022 01:25 am by Esperanza
New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.