New Mexico has a rocky gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Native tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. 10 years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
