Bingo in New Mexico

February 1st, 2021 by Nikhil Leave a reply »

New Mexico has a complex gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo industry has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.

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