New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups 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, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a hot button issue like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
