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New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.

The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor 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 American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.

It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.

The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.

Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button factor like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.

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