New Mexico has a rocky gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key matter like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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