New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was passed 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 appointed a working group in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with two prominent local bands 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 over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying 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 house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. 10 years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
You must be logged in to post a comment.