New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson 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 required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $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 grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
