New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. 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 Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two important local bands 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 1995, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicos are through batting over gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on June 25, 2018, 4:25 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.