New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel came to an accord 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 seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, 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 ball rolling on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on March 30, 2022, 1:25 am and is filed under Bingo. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.