New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying 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 ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
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