New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force came to an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying 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, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.