New Mexico has a rocky gaming history. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group came to an agreement with 2 big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues 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 contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a key issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.