New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
