New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed 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 assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force came to an accord with two 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 office in 1995, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
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