New Mexico has a rocky gambling history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at 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 1995, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.