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New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus costing 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 contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as a key issue like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
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