New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. 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 American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force came to an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the government 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on July 22, 2020, 7:25 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.