New Mexico Bingo
Friday, 13. September 2024
New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, 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 case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
Posted in Bingo by Taryn