New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in 1990 to discuss an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Native bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is 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.