Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.
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