New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. 10 years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on November 5, 2009, 10:22 pm and is filed under Bingo. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.