New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.