New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important issue like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
