New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force came to an agreement with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.