New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
