New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
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