New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel came to an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Native bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore costing the state of New Mexico 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 accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 90’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
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