New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act 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 guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. Ten years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on June 11, 2022, 9:25 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.