New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found 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, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.