New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby 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 legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. 10 years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
