Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force came to an accord with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state 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 house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a hot button matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
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