New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act 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 assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-wagering 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 a deal, thus denying 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 ball rolling on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo industry has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gambling as a hot button matter like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.