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New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.
