New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
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