New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to create a compact with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two big local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Amerindian betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since then. 2005 saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important factor like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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