New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force came to an accord with 2 big local bands 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 1995, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, 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 government, to get the process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in just $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 increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.