New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to discuss a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the government 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 house, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a key factor like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.