New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.