New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with two big local tribes 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 wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
