Bingo in New Mexico
Posted in Casino on 10/24/2015 10:21 pm by Dakota
New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 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 office in 1995, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.