New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on March 2, 2024, 4:25 am 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.