New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with two 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 Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
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