New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators 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 revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button factor like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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