New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.
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