Bingo in New Mexico

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New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would 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 task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson 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 Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.

Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.