New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore 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 process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. 10 years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.
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