Bingo in New Mexico
Posted in Casino on 01/27/2019 08:25 am by Marc
New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force came to an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.