Bingo in New Mexico
Sunday, 5. February 2017
New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force came to an accord with two important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
Posted in Bingo by Taryn