New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. 10 years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
