New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Native bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled 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, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All types of owners look for a slice of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting over gaming as a key matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.