New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
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