Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the government 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 house, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. Ten years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
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