New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined 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 Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.
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