New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold 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 a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
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