New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the action. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on January 29, 2016, 1:21 pm and is filed under Casino. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.