New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering forces 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 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 Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.