Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
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