New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Native tribes. When the panel came to an accord with two important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus 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 process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gaming as an important factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.