New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in 1990 to discuss an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased since 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on February 23, 2018, 5:25 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.