New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two prominent local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native bands, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers acquired just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a slice of the action. With hope, the politicians are through batting over gaming as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.
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