New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.
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