New Mexico has a rocky gambling background. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, 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 panel in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 big local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the compact with the Amerindian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues 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 amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown from 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is categorically beloved in New Mexico. All types of operators try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a hot button factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
