New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with two big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.
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