New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force came to an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, 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, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a key issue like they did in the 90’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.