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New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to discuss a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying 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 amongst the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently favored in New Mexico. All kinds of owners look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
