New Mexico Bingo
Posted in Casino on 02/10/2019 04:25 pm by Esperanza
New Mexico has a complex gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed 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 assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.