New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress 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 would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
