New Mexico Bingo
Monday, 3. July 2023
New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Native bands, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
Posted in Bingo by Taryn