New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as an important factor like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.
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