New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in 1990 to draft a contract with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 important local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the deal, thus denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. 10 years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key factor like they did back in the 1990’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.