New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.