Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico 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 process moving on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.