New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. 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 American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore 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 compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. Ten years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
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