Skip to content

Categories:

Bingo in New Mexico

[ English ]

New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with two important local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.

When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. 10 years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.

The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.

Posted in Bingo.


0 Responses

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.

You must be logged in to post a comment.