New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. 10 years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All sorts of operators look for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
