New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing 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 contract between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. 10 years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicos are through batting over gambling as an important matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.