New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.