New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. 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 Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
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