New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 big local bands 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 office in 1995, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.