New Mexico Bingo
Thursday, 31. August 2023
New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering 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, thus 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 process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.
Posted in Casino by Jaime