06.14
Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with two big 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 Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
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