New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gambling as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
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