New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act 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 guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore 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 house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as an important factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably 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.