New Mexico has a bitter gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a working group in 1990 to create an accord with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with 2 prominent 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 office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian gambling in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Indian bands, anti-gambling forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, 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, passed by the New Mexico house, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The non-profit Bingo industry has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico charity game owners brought in only $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in revenues in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is categorically favored in New Mexico. All kinds of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicos are done batting around gaming as an important factor like they did back in the 90’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.