New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.
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