New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an agreement with two important 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 1995, it appeared that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying 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 process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important factor like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.