New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues 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 contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.
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