New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. 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 over in 1995, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore 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, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is most likely hopeful thinking.