New Mexico has a complex gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two important local bands a year later, Governor King refused 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 American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably 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.