New Mexico has a stormy gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to draft an accord with New Mexico Indian bands. When the panel arrived at an accord with 2 big local bands a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Indian gambling 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 tie the accord up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore costing the government of New Mexico 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 accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian bands. A decade had been burned for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game owners acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gambling as a key issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.