New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with two big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus costing 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.
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