New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with two important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.
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