New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.