New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with two prominent local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Indian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore costing the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. 10 years had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.