New Mexico Bingo
Tuesday, 27. October 2015
New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a hot button matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
Posted in Bingo by Taryn