New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed 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 assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
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