New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing 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 process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
You must be logged in to post a comment.