New Mexico has a complex gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes 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 over in 1995, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore costing the state of New Mexico many 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 ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are through batting over gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.