New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling forces 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 accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
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