New Mexico has a stormy gaming past. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act 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 bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force came to an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused 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 wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-wagering groups 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 a deal, therefore costing the state 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 house, to get the process moving on a full compact between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from 1999. That year, New Mexico non-profit game owners acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is categorically popular in New Mexico. All kinds of providers try for a piece of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as a hot button matter like they did back in the 1990’s. That’s most likely hopeful thinking.