New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with two big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, 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 house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. 10 years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
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