New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to draft a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King declined 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 American Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Native bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus costing the state 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 house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a key factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on January 13, 2024, 2:25 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.