New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 90’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
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