New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
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