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New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. 10 years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.
