New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the working group came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
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