New Mexico has a rocky gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues 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 contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.