New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.