New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees 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 contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.