New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two big 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 over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying 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, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.