Bingo in New Mexico
Sunday, 3. January 2016
New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the IGRA 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 bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
Posted in Casino by Ricky