Bingo Tricks

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New Mexico has a complex gambling 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 get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.

When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.

It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.

The not for profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.

Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.