New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel came to an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. Ten years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has increased from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
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