New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force came to an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying 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, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
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 gambling as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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