New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the accord with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed 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 gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of owners try for a bit of the action. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important factor like they did in the 90’s. That’s probably hopeful thinking.