New Mexico has a bitter gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the task force came to an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Native bands, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus 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, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gaming as a hot button issue like they did in the 90’s. That is without doubt wishful thinking.
