New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Indian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the state 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 government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. 10 years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.