New Mexico Bingo
Monday, 1. May 2023
New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
Posted in Casino by Angel