New Mexico Bingo
Saturday, 13. January 2024
New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Indian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
Posted in Casino by Dayana