New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. 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 Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes 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 1995, it seemed that American Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. 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. That year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
