Bingo in New Mexico
Posted in Casino on 10/21/2024 03:25 am by Esperanza
New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with two important local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as an important factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.