New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on January 17, 2022, 4:25 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.