New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gambling as a hot button factor like they did in the 90’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
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