Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby costing 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, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
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