New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico many 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 process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the action. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a key factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.