New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore 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, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of owners look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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