New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.