New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with two big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. Ten years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on February 19, 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.