New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss an accord with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel came to an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore denying the state 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 government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.