New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore costing 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 house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.
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