New Mexico has a complex gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby 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, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a hot button matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.