New Mexico Bingo
Tuesday, 4. October 2016
New Mexico has a complex gambling history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Native bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby 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, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
Posted in Casino by Alivia