New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group came to an accord with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
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