New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel came to an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby 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, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.