New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Native bands, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the government of New Mexico 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 ball rolling on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.