New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the working group came to an accord with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the government 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
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