New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the Native casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King announced a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the task force arrived at an accord with 2 important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He held up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it seemed that Native betting in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to hold the deal up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its Native tribes. Ten years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Indian casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has increased from 1999. That year, New Mexico charity game operators brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting over gambling as a key matter like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.