New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on September 25, 2020, 1:25 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.