New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a piece of the action. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.