New Mexico has a complex gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing 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 government, to get the process moving on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
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