New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the government of New Mexico 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 accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.