New Mexico has a complex gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus 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, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full accord between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game owners brought in only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a key issue like they did in the 90’s. That is probably wishful thinking.