New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus costing 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 house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. 10 years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on October 5, 2017, 2:25 pm 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.