New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not 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 panel arrived at an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on April 14, 2025, 7:25 pm and is filed under Casino. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.