New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a contract with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused 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 Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the accord with the American Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus denying the government 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 ball rolling on a full compact between the State of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown since 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game operators brought in just $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators try for a piece of the action. 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.
