New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the working group came to an accord with 2 big 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 Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
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