New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with two important local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore denying the government 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 house, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.
