New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to draft a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Native bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, 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, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. 10 years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since that time. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting over gambling as an important factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.