New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a complex gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a hot button matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
