Bingo in New Mexico
Posted in Casino on 04/17/2018 08:25 pm by Jarrett
New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, the Governor 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 Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.