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New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
January 27th, 2010
Mohammed
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