New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the government 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 process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a key factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.