New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.