New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.