New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico Native bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Indian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased from 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.