New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus costing the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.
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