New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying 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 process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew 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 largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.