New Mexico Bingo
Tuesday, 15. February 2022
New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
Posted in Casino by Hudson