Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 important 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 over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus costing the state 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 process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
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