New Mexico Bingo
Friday, 19. May 2017
New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might 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 assembled a panel in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state 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 government, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048. That climbed 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 greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
Posted in Casino by Franco