10.17
New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a stormy gambling 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 get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force came to an accord with two big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
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