New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with two big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. 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 passed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues 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 Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. 10 years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game providers acquired only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of operators try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.