New Mexico has a bitter 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 get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
