New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local bands 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 Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying 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 accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
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