New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore 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 government, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.