New Mexico has a complex gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord 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 overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby costing the government 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.