Bingo in New Mexico
Posted in Bingo on 11/15/2019 10:25 pm by Eileen
New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, 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 tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state 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 house, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.