New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby costing the state of New Mexico 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 process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on July 1, 2017, 8:25 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.