New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 important 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 1995, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
No comments yet.