New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.