New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 prominent local tribes 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 Indian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus 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 house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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