New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the IGRA was signed 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 guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.
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