New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the contract with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus 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 legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting over gambling as a key matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.