New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled 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 Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. 10 years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting over gambling as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on November 28, 2022, 2:25 pm and is filed under Casino. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.