New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force came to an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Indian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
