New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Native bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped 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 accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. 10 years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.