New Mexico has a complex gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two prominent local bands 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 gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.
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