New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby costing the government of New Mexico 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 ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.
This entry was posted on September 2, 2018, 10:27 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.