New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. 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 panel in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces 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 deal, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
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