Bingo in New Mexico
by Juan on August 1st, 2022
New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus costing the government of New Mexico many 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 accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. Ten years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a piece of the action. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
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