Bingo in New Mexico
Posted in Bingo on 01/05/2023 06:25 pm by Eileen
New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a hot button matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.