New Mexico Bingo
Posted in Casino on 09/16/2015 07:21 pm by Jude
New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 big 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 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.