Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, Governor King 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 seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
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