[
English ]
New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the IGRA was passed 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 guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a key matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
Filed under: Casino -
Trackback
Uri
