New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a task force in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that Indian gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Indian bands, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the deal, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has increased since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. 2005 saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.
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