New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.