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New Mexico Bingo

New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.

Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.

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