New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.