New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with two prominent 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 office in 1995, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many 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 process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a key factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on September 17, 2022, 11:25 pm 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.