New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in Nineteen Ninety to create an accord with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with two important local tribes a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Native bands, anti-gambling forces were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thus denying the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has grown from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have grown constantly since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the providers.
Bingo is certainly popular in New Mexico. All types of providers try for a piece of the pie. With hope, the politicos are through batting over gaming as an important matter like they did back in the 90’s. That is probably hopeful thinking.