New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-wagering 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 accord, thereby denying the state 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
