New Mexico Bingo
by Eduardo on Thursday, December 7th, 2017
New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. 10 years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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