New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on July 12, 2023, 1:25 pm 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.