New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would 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 create a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 important local tribes 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 Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a key matter like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
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