New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on September 14, 2022, 11:25 am and is filed under Casino. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.