New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the accord up in 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 took the CNA, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $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 that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably 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.