New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. 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 Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel came to an accord with two important 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 Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees 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 American Indian bands. 10 years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button factor like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
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