New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel came to an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, 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 amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. 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 passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.