New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many 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 ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
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