New Mexico Bingo
Posted in Bingo on 05/07/2020 11:25 am by Eileen
New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined 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 seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby costing 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, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.