New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that American Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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