New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to draft a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
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