New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group came to an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, 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, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key factor like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
Filed under: Casino -
Trackback
Uri
