New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government of New Mexico many 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 between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. 10 years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful 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.