New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a piece of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on July 9, 2023, 3:25 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.