New Mexico has a stormy gaming background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group arrived at an accord with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Amerindian bands, anti-gambling groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. 2005 witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the owners.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as a hot button issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.