New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.
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