New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gaming as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.