New Mexico has a bitter gaming past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might 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 panel in Nineteen Ninety to discuss a contract with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the task force arrived at an agreement with 2 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 Native gambling in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus costing the government 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 house, to get the process moving on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. Ten years had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has increased since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game operators acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the operators.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All types of providers look for a slice of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important factor like they did in the 1990’s. That is without doubt hopeful thinking.