New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a task force in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two big local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that American Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has increased since 1999. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game providers brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. 2005 saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.