New Mexico Bingo
Posted in Casino on 12/05/2020 06:25 pm by Marc
New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. 10 years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.