12
June
Written by Tristan.
Posted in: Casino
New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.
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