New Mexico has a bitter gambling history. 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 get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as an important factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.
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