New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
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