New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. 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 Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
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