New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. 10 years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
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