New Mexico Bingo
Posted in Casino on 01/22/2010 03:21 am by Zaiden
New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. 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 cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, 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 accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.