New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would 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 announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused 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 American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus 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 process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
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