New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore denying the government 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. 10 years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.