New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel came to an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.
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