New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel 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 Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on May 23, 2017, 10:25 am and is filed under Bingo. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.