New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on May 14, 2018, 10:25 pm and is filed under Casino. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.