New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a task force in Nineteen Ninety to create a contract with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-gaming groups were able to tie the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, therefore costing the state of New Mexico many 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 contract amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has grown since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game owners brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
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