Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a complex gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.