New Mexico Bingo
Thursday, 16. February 2023
New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
Posted in Bingo by Taryn