New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the American Indian tribes, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, 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, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is clearly favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting around gambling as a key matter like they did in the 90’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.