New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore 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 accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
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