New Mexico has a stormy gambling history. When the IGRA was passed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the American Indian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft an accord with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group arrived at an accord with two important local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Native betting in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the American Indian bands, anti-gaming forces were able to tie the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thereby denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Indian bands. Ten years had been squandered for gaming in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico non-profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in revenues in 2001. Not for profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. Two Thousand and Five witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of operators look for a bit of the action. Hopefully, the politicians are done batting over gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That is most likely wishful thinking.