New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it looked 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 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. 10 years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.