New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a complex gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked 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 announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with two big local bands 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 office in 1995, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important factor like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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