New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the IGRA was signed 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 assembled a panel in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
You must be logged in to post a comment.