New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on December 30, 2022, 12:25 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.