New Mexico Bingo


[ English ]

New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two big 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 Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, 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, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.

Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.

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