New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement 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 office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
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